Awakening of a dormant dream

Although it makes my life seems very dull to others, I benefit a lot from my part time Master course in Information Security. The gain is not just in the form of hard knowledge, but also subtle understanding of many aspects of different functions of the world. The latter is the reward exclusive to part-time course.

Classmates are from many different backgrounds. There is a high-ranked police officer, a manager from a copy machine company, a handful of programmers, a navy, a university tutor, a fireman to name a few. Discussions and presentations always get very lively, as we criticise each other constructively based on our different experience.

Well, if anyone is contemplating between a full-time and a part-time Master course, I suggest part-time. Learn simultaneously from daily work and part-time classes. Learn everything, as much as possible, as quickly as possible. The current situation is ideal for me. I am, to borrow Munyi’s words, “drunk on knowledge”.

Did I title this post “Awakening of a dormant dream?” Well I got sidetracked too much. Basically two of my programmer classmates invited me to jump on the freelance bandwagon. It scared me before to bid for projects advertised online, as I was not sure that my programming skill was at industry level. But I was told  by them that I could instead join freelance programmer network where the members pass projects among each other depending on each individual’s schedule, skill and mood.

At the moment, there are 21 programming books next to me. 14 of them have been in my possession since years ago. Others are new. I never knew why I stubbornly studied programming before, which had bleak relevance to my future. But now, bits and pieces of my life are getting into order.

My whole life is starting to make sense – fast.

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My Future is My Past

I am at the office at the moment. 2 hours to midnight, I dont know why I am here. During the lunch time today, I had to leave due to a pressing matter, so I promised my boss to make a request for an emergency leave, and also return back to the office at night.

So I am here to keep my promise? LOL, never knew I cared about promises that much 🙂 Since when?

Anyway I bumped into Izrin today. Or actually, he came to my side when I was browsing a book entitled “In God We Doubt”. He must be puzzled why did I hold such a blasphemous book. No reason, except for the fact that it’s on the front most shelf. Also the title made me curious 🙂

 Izrin was my MCKK ex-school mate who excelled tremendously in his studies and debates. We all expected him to do well in the future, and it seems he is on track to meet everyone’s expectation. He graduated from U.S. , two years earlier than me, and now working with Exxon Mobil. Much to my envy, his scholarship pay-back service to the company needs only to last for 5 years. Me? 10 years.

I was delighted when he asked me about my next Go tournament, to which I answered, “It’s this weekend with a chance to go to Korea (Jeongju) for free if I win.” 🙂

I am happy with my Go. Not because of free trips, not because of the friends I make, but because I am finally acknowledged as a board game player. It was my childhood dream since I started playing chess at age 10. I failed in chess.

I am ready to quit Go. I consider two free trips to Thailand before and another trip to Japan soon to be enough as return on all my investment in Go, including books, equipments and one-month trip to Beijing, China. The whole journey was fascinating. I learned that “going all the way” pays.

So what’s next for me?

Programming. I want to be acknowledged as a qualified freelance programmer, not just a hobbyist who does kiddy stuff like solving Text Twist anagram or a library magazine-borrowing system. The easiest way for this is to change my current part-time Masters course, Information Security to Real-Time Software Engineering. The latter course includes two-term attachment with companies.

I initially registered for this course, until I was convinced otherwise to register for Information Security instead. Security awareness is growing in Malaysia, and soon security personnels (IT security, not guards) will be in high demand. It’s true. Every organization needs security professionals, not software engineers, much less real-time software engineers.

But, I dont live and work for the future. I live and work to realise my past dreams. Its weird and odd, but have I been anything else? 🙂

Would my parents who sponsor my Masters course understand my stubbornness to get whatever I dared dream? If they insist me on continuing rather than changing my Masters course, I have a backup plan. I will do another Masters, this time in Real-Time Software Engineering. It will cost me RM20,000 +. It will be another two years of lacking social life and interactions.

But I have decided. I must be acknowledged as a professional programmer. However laughable the idea of doing third (yes, THIRD !) Masters is.

Ah, how foolish can a man be …

OK, better go now. I’m alone at 11pm here, and this particular floor is well known for its past spiritual (ghost) occurences. 🙂

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