January 26, 2008, 4:53 p.m.
Sender: Beneboy
“St. Therese’s relics will be at sta. teresita parish at mayon st. q.c. mass and exposure wil be at 10am. Sana makapunta kau”
A famous bar reviewer once told us that “If you’re an atheist, you will find your religion during the bar exams.”
“Lahat ng santo tatawagin nyo. Kahit si sta. mesa at si st. cinnamon tatawagin nyo.”
At this point I am bordering on, wait, I am already desperate and depressed. I have not found a job yet and I have been job hunting since late October. I had long dropped my pride and asked relatives if they can refer me to a job and started applying for positions requiring lower qualifications. I can already feel the enormous pressure and I didn’t want to be called a bum and I hate the feeling of having to ask for allowance at my age.
The strain of waiting for the results of the bar exams is also bearing down on me, with every text message received from other barristers I feel a small shudder before opening it that it might be the news I was dreading to hear.
I don’t remember going to the Sta. Tersita Parish to visit the relics but I do remember visiting St. Jude in Malacanang during the waiting period. I am a practicing catholic, I go to church every Sunday, I pray the rosary every night. I think it was my faith that helped me survive those long arduous period in my life. I remembered my prayers back then was ended with “your will be done” and “help me accept the things I cannot change”. But secretly (if that’s even possible with God) I wanted to directly ask for me to pass the bar exams, even how selfish it might sound.
Whatever the outcome was I only hoped that I would have the strength to accept it.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Five on Five oh! Ayaw pa umuwi e!
January 25, 2008, 6:05 p.m.
Sender: Syd
“San ka? daan ka area? DOTA!”
Someone said “Men don’t stop playing with toys, their toys just gets bigger and more expensive.”
My love affair with computer games started when I bought my first pirated copy of Heroes of Might and Magic back in high school. I remembered secretly installing it to my old pc which was for study purpose only and playing the game for hours on end. I was hooked. In first year college I found out that Abogwapo, Geist and Syd also shared common interest in computer games. The hottest game back then was Quake II, a first person shooter (FPS) game were the object of the game is to acquire weapons to shoot your opponents and proceed to laugh at their expense for being a noob (newbie or bano, its also synonymous with edson and dulay) then a far superior FPS game came out, Half-Life with superior graphics and a host of never before seen weapons and gameplay.
Everything changed when Starcraft was released. A Real Time Strategy (RTS) game where you select one of three unique alien races, build your base, and train your army to defeat the opposing team. This game filled our afternoons and emptied our allowances during college. A lot of side stories emerged playing this game, from the KCE and EBS strategy, the time when we left boy plano and beehlyn to themselves so that we can play the game which eventually led to their budding relationship, the time that me and Geist decided to play up to 10 p.m. despite the fact that we had midterm exams the next morning where we got the HIGHEST scores, the epic one on one between syd and rocco and a lot of other inside jokes developed because of this game.
To play these games with your friends one needed to go to any internet café shops that offer Local Area Network (LAN) games. Our first hangouts were a small computer shops in P. Noval, Asturias and another shop in Espana. We then heard of a computer shop tucked in a condominium building in P. Noval named I-link. The most popular game then was Counter-Strike, a modification of the Half-Life game where it pits two opposing forces the terrorists and counter-terrorists for an all out last man standing gun battle. This is where I met with my new set of pro-gamer friends and acquaintances. I-link became a popular computer shop back in the day that it came to a point that you needed to reserve a spot hours before your intended play time since the place was always full. It also helped that we developed a rapport with the shop owner and we became “preferred” customers so we didn’t have to line up for reservation.
This was also the site of the first gaming tournament we joined. Our team was composed of Abogwapo who used the handle Novice, Geist, Syd as Pink5 (see the pattern developing?) Me using the handle <:;:;:)=B@ckSt@B and two new recruits Jubei and Seifer. Our team was called BonuStage because of our reputation of being the noisiest and rowdiest team in the shop. Well, we eventually lost that tournament and few more others after that but at the same time we became one of the most popular team in the shop.
Around 2003, I-link closed its doors and we had to look for a temporary hangout, fortunately just next door to i-link there were other shops called amber.net and i-cue and we took over the place. If you’re into the gaming lifestyle, you will learn that each computer shop has its own “house team” or regulars. Because of this we felt like “squatters” at that time since Amber and i-cue was not our regular shop. A few months later we were excited to hear that a new shop named AREA-77 would open where i-link had left and to make it better the owner, Mars was a classmate of Abogwapo and Geist in law school. Yes, we were already law students and still we had time to play computer games. The shop owner was extremely lucky because a new game had just been released and he rode the wave of its popularity all the way to the bank. The game is the popular massively-multiplayer online role playing game (mmorpg) called Ragnarok. I personally didn’t play Ragnarok because I’m not a real fan of mmorpg’s since those games require you to sit in front of the computer for hours to make your character stronger. Since we were in law school at the time we didn’t have the luxury of time that we had back in college. Back then we called ourselves part-time students. We only played games that gave you a quick fix like Starcraft since an ordinary game would normally last only one hour or counterstrike where you can leave the game anytime.
Real life would catch up on us again around 2005 since Mars would get married and would be going home to live with his wife in their province. Area 77 would eventually close its doors again but this time we were again fortunate since a new computer shop opened where i-cue had operated. The new shop is called AMS and this is where you will regularly find me and other Professional-Gamers on a Saturday night playing Defense of the Ancients (DotA). When I say “Professional-Gamers” I don’t refer to those persons who play games for a living in tournaments but I refer to the persons who were students like me before who are now gainfully employed as professionals in their particular field or successful businessmen who still share the passion for computer games.
Every time I hear someone arguing that computer games is bad for students, I just smile at them but I wont bother rebuking them because they are obviously generalizing or misinformed. The general rule is “EVERYTHING excessive is bad for you.” I only have to look at myself and my friends to see that these gamers are now lawyers, architects, nurses, computer engineers, businessmen and other professionals in their chosen field. I would personally attest that if I didn’t have games I would have not survived law school and the bar preparation stage because playing games is my outlet to “detoxify” myself (and spongebob squarepants of course). How long will I keep playing games? I really can’t answer that now. Maybe in the future, but…..
Starcraft II is coming out soon. =p
Sender: Syd
“San ka? daan ka area? DOTA!”
Someone said “Men don’t stop playing with toys, their toys just gets bigger and more expensive.”
My love affair with computer games started when I bought my first pirated copy of Heroes of Might and Magic back in high school. I remembered secretly installing it to my old pc which was for study purpose only and playing the game for hours on end. I was hooked. In first year college I found out that Abogwapo, Geist and Syd also shared common interest in computer games. The hottest game back then was Quake II, a first person shooter (FPS) game were the object of the game is to acquire weapons to shoot your opponents and proceed to laugh at their expense for being a noob (newbie or bano, its also synonymous with edson and dulay) then a far superior FPS game came out, Half-Life with superior graphics and a host of never before seen weapons and gameplay.
Everything changed when Starcraft was released. A Real Time Strategy (RTS) game where you select one of three unique alien races, build your base, and train your army to defeat the opposing team. This game filled our afternoons and emptied our allowances during college. A lot of side stories emerged playing this game, from the KCE and EBS strategy, the time when we left boy plano and beehlyn to themselves so that we can play the game which eventually led to their budding relationship, the time that me and Geist decided to play up to 10 p.m. despite the fact that we had midterm exams the next morning where we got the HIGHEST scores, the epic one on one between syd and rocco and a lot of other inside jokes developed because of this game.
To play these games with your friends one needed to go to any internet café shops that offer Local Area Network (LAN) games. Our first hangouts were a small computer shops in P. Noval, Asturias and another shop in Espana. We then heard of a computer shop tucked in a condominium building in P. Noval named I-link. The most popular game then was Counter-Strike, a modification of the Half-Life game where it pits two opposing forces the terrorists and counter-terrorists for an all out last man standing gun battle. This is where I met with my new set of pro-gamer friends and acquaintances. I-link became a popular computer shop back in the day that it came to a point that you needed to reserve a spot hours before your intended play time since the place was always full. It also helped that we developed a rapport with the shop owner and we became “preferred” customers so we didn’t have to line up for reservation.
This was also the site of the first gaming tournament we joined. Our team was composed of Abogwapo who used the handle Novice, Geist, Syd as Pink5 (see the pattern developing?) Me using the handle <:;:;:)=B@ckSt@B and two new recruits Jubei and Seifer. Our team was called BonuStage because of our reputation of being the noisiest and rowdiest team in the shop. Well, we eventually lost that tournament and few more others after that but at the same time we became one of the most popular team in the shop.
Around 2003, I-link closed its doors and we had to look for a temporary hangout, fortunately just next door to i-link there were other shops called amber.net and i-cue and we took over the place. If you’re into the gaming lifestyle, you will learn that each computer shop has its own “house team” or regulars. Because of this we felt like “squatters” at that time since Amber and i-cue was not our regular shop. A few months later we were excited to hear that a new shop named AREA-77 would open where i-link had left and to make it better the owner, Mars was a classmate of Abogwapo and Geist in law school. Yes, we were already law students and still we had time to play computer games. The shop owner was extremely lucky because a new game had just been released and he rode the wave of its popularity all the way to the bank. The game is the popular massively-multiplayer online role playing game (mmorpg) called Ragnarok. I personally didn’t play Ragnarok because I’m not a real fan of mmorpg’s since those games require you to sit in front of the computer for hours to make your character stronger. Since we were in law school at the time we didn’t have the luxury of time that we had back in college. Back then we called ourselves part-time students. We only played games that gave you a quick fix like Starcraft since an ordinary game would normally last only one hour or counterstrike where you can leave the game anytime.
Real life would catch up on us again around 2005 since Mars would get married and would be going home to live with his wife in their province. Area 77 would eventually close its doors again but this time we were again fortunate since a new computer shop opened where i-cue had operated. The new shop is called AMS and this is where you will regularly find me and other Professional-Gamers on a Saturday night playing Defense of the Ancients (DotA). When I say “Professional-Gamers” I don’t refer to those persons who play games for a living in tournaments but I refer to the persons who were students like me before who are now gainfully employed as professionals in their particular field or successful businessmen who still share the passion for computer games.
Every time I hear someone arguing that computer games is bad for students, I just smile at them but I wont bother rebuking them because they are obviously generalizing or misinformed. The general rule is “EVERYTHING excessive is bad for you.” I only have to look at myself and my friends to see that these gamers are now lawyers, architects, nurses, computer engineers, businessmen and other professionals in their chosen field. I would personally attest that if I didn’t have games I would have not survived law school and the bar preparation stage because playing games is my outlet to “detoxify” myself (and spongebob squarepants of course). How long will I keep playing games? I really can’t answer that now. Maybe in the future, but…..
Starcraft II is coming out soon. =p
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
