on learning a lesson or two (maybe, even three)

the past week's been filled with a lot of learning. it almost felt as though i was back to school. oh wait, i was back to school. wednesday night saw my first flash class at pratt institute. it's a bit funny obviously being back in a classroom/lab setting and sitting for 2 hours straight trying to absorb as humanly possible. was a good class actually. the 2 hours was engaging enough and of course it helps that the teacher works for VH1 and somehow exudes a best week ever aura to him.

it's mainly a programming language class that will hopefully bring out my inner nerd as i come up with more flash-y web applications. so far so good. the course seems to have exactly what i was looking for and i cant wait to learn the neat tricks for doing this and that in the coming weeks.

aside from adding a few computer words to my vocabulary, ive also been learning quite a few spanish phrases. a moment of office boredom 2 weeks back led me to a cool podcast on learning the language and ive been hooked since. great way of actually doing something during commutes aside from getting pissed at people having their bags sit when there's 10 million people who are looking for a seat. muy fatal! ok so that might be the wrong phrase for that one (more like coño perhaps). but at least now i can do the basic hola! mi llamo jason pacheco y soy de filipinas. who knows i just might find myself back in spain soon and i wouldnt wanna make a complete fool of myself again while trying to order food. muy bien. check out the site. they do have italian and german too. not that you'd ever want to learn german really.

aside from the web-based learning, ive also been picking up really useful info from a book ive been reading — the lazy person's guide to investing. just 3/4 into the book and ive learned quite a bit about no load index funds and expense ratios and the different ways of outsmarting wall street by keeping everything simple. simple enough to live a worry-free life leading to retirement, being able to do all that's really important along the way (and none of that worrying about one's retirement nest egg crap). im still a little bit torn though if it's FFNOX or FSMKX for me. maybe i'll find out at the end of the book. can't wait.

to balance out all the mental work, ive also enrolled myself in a spinning class at NYU. our first class was actually this afternoon. spinning is basically your indoor cycling except in a classroom setting. quite a high-intensity form of exercise and my legs were burning as we simulated some steep hills during the whole hour. was sweating my brains out but the loud music and the instructor's constant reminders of digging in and pushing yourself proved great encouragement. you'd definitely get some WTF moments and be really tempted to slow down or stop but somehow you'd manage to dig in and get that will to push your limits. coz after all, though you're your worst enemy, you are your best ally as well. (wait, did that just sound a bit too split personality? am i hearing voices?)

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it's amazing how many opportunities there are for learning. sure, there's the usual classroom school setting. but there are also tons of online resources out there such as podcasts (and of course wikipedia). and there are also the ever-reliable books (plus points if they're really easy reading). and perhaps, the best resource of all, other people—the more different they are, the better. with the tons of resources for expanding one's knowledge, it's almost a shame to be not picking up anything new. sure i can spend hours on my reality tv (which unfortunately, i do) but that doesnt really enrich me much. garbage in, garbage out. the only way we can share quality thoughts, ideas and lives, is if we first feed ourselves with things of quality.

unfortunately, something with growing older makes us less receptive to learning. instead of greeting things new with our natural born curiosity, somehow our brains, as we age, develops ten million excuses why we can't learn this or can't do that. when that happens just remember 2 words — dig in.

oh and, push yourself. fair enough, that's 4.