I'm a twentysomething and I'll keep being me:.

After years of expensive education
A car full of books and anticipation
I'm an expert on Shakespeare and that's a hell of a lot
But the world don't need scholars as much as I thought

Maybe I'll go traveling for a year
Finding myself or start a career
I could work for the poor though I'm hungry for fame
We all seem so different but we're just the same

Maybe I'll go to the gym, so I don't get fat
Aren't things more easy with a tight six pack?
Who knows the answers? Who do you trust?
I can't even separate love from lust

Maybe I'll move back home and pay off my loans
Working nine to five answering phones
Don't make me live for my Friday nights
Drinking eight pints and getting in fights

I don't want to get up, just let me lie in
Leave me alone, I'm a twenty something

Maybe I'll just fall in love that could solve it all
Philosophers say that, that's enough
There surely must be more

Love ain't the answer, nor is work
The truth eludes me so much it hurts
But I'm still having fun and I guess that's the key
I'm a twenty something and I'll keep being me

I'm a twenty something
Let me lie in, leave me alone
I'm a twenty something


Jamie Cullum

Make revision to a dream:.

It's kind of sad to say this, but if it weren't for yoga I wouldn't have any interesting class this semester. The problem is that I'm taking two of the so-called core courses, that is, mandatory courses for everyone. This implies two things, not everyone has the same level/interest for those particular classes, and teachers only treat subjects in rather general levels. In other words, boring!!:.

For instance, if you have colleagues that can barely program their way out of a Basic program, you cannot expect them to have decent discussions about real world software engineering!!. If not even the teacher can understand a beautiful code when it passes right through his nose, you're wasting your time. What's more, if he can't even understand, let alone explain, topics he is supposed to teach you, you are not in good hands.

If a teacher spends most of her class showing you how to use some program, just a damn UML modeling tool, all hope is lost!!. If you combine this with unsupported claims against current trends like Agile Modeling, or avoid discussions just by claiming 'this is what's been used in the industry', you might as well just be losing your time.

I know that at a postgraduate level you are supposed to specialize in the things you like, and that courses like the ones I mentioned above are intended to give you an introduction to areas you wouldn't normally consider. Still, the quality of the particular courses I'm taking right now is way below the average!!:.

You need something for which to care,
saying, why can't we look the other way?

So let's set up and see:.

It's been two weeks since I came back to school. Truth be told, though I've enjoyed the courses I chose for this semester, the very best is not an academic one, but Yoga. I had my very first approach to Yoga precisely when I was about to graduate from college, and five years later I'm taking the same course, but with several improvements.

The thing I like the most is to be aware of the way you breathe. I know we're used to think about this process as something mechanical, but it can be more, much more, than that!.

Just looking out on the day,
of another dream.

Something touched me deep inside the day the music died:.

A couple of years ago I took my loyal Zen player, loaded it with a couple of excellent songs, and went backpacking across Italy for two weeks or so. It was quite an experience, but this all comes out now because now that I think about it, I'm not sure if one of those songs was Don McLean's American Pie.

This might sound silly for some, but I tend to think of my history by the songs I can remember from key points in my life. To listen to a song you thought forgotten, and be able to recall emotions, flavors, thoughts and much more, is just amazing!!:.

Be as it may, today I felt like listening to this song again =):.

And, there we were,
all in one place - a generation Lost in Space -
with no time left to start again.

And I've got a coat tail left to ride:.

If everything goes as planned this semester I'll be graduating from my master's degree. To be honest, I liked the whole idea of being back at school, and having academic challenges. In some aspects, it's less demanding than being in a work environment, but the advantage is that you've got plenty of time to specialize on the things that you find particularly interesting, even if they're not business wise. Research for the joy of research!!:.

Now the question is, what's next?. As Morpheus said, everything begins with choice, and right now the options are pursuing a PhD or going back to the industry. To be honest, there's one more variable, to stay in Mexico or to look for opportunities abroad. I haven't decided anything yet, but neither did Neo till the end of the movie =):.

Although my heart's in Mexico,
my muñequita,
abre tus ojos!

Let the music play:.

Well, let's recall what happened during these weeks of rest, first of all I went on a tour to the amazing state of Chiapas!. I had never been there and I must say it really surprised me, nature is simply amazing. But to be honest it disappointed me the way tourism is managed with all this mexican-curious idea. I specially didn't like the way children are taught to beg for money, and not because they don't need it, but because you can tell there's no innocence in the act, just mechanical repetition. Or when you visit a small town and have to pay for the privilege of taking a picture. There's so much potential there, both in the people and places, and keeping them isolated just to sell them as a curiosity is not fair:.

I've also been working on my master thesis project. Though the implementation is not yet finished, it's stable enough to show and discuss it with my advisors. This week I'll be writing down the motivations and details of what I've implemented so far, to be honest, it's more fun to program than to document what you've programmed =)

Next week I'll go back to school. First class of my last semester: yoga!!:.

I need something I can turn to,
something I can count in,
day and night, on and on.

Give me freedom:.

Back in college I met this guy that claimed you could get to know someone just by looking at their code. Back then I thought this was nonsense, but with time I've come to realize he wasn't so wrong after all. You obviously can't learn everything worth knowing about someone just by the quality of their code, but you can certainly watch out for patterns that can give you a better idea of the maturity and programming level that person is in right now. You can always brag about how many design patterns you know, your popularity in dzone.com, maybe even about the TV series and movies you've watched, but the truth is that when you show your code to someone else, there's no way to hide the real programmer in you!

I'm telling all this because today I came across some code programmed by a so-called leader of the Java community in Mexico, needless to say I was really disappointed:.

You define us,
Make us feel proud.