So… I Wandered Off for a Bit At some point, I drifted. Not in a dramatic, “I quit everything and moved to a mountain” kind of way. More like… I opened one academic door, then another, then suddenly I’m deep into GIS, writing papers, and thinking about spatial relationships like I’m plotting a crime documentary. It was good for me.
Category: Careers
I haven’t taken the CCNA yet — but I’ve already laced up my running shoes. The track is clear in front of me, painted with subnet masks, routing protocols, and the occasional cryptic Cisco exam question that looks like it was written during a power outage. This is the race I’m signing up for — the one where the finish
The systems are duct-taped, the code’s ugly, but uptime’s at 99.9%—you’re welcome. Let’s get one thing clear: I’m not just “in IT.” I am IT. I’m the one-person help desk, cybersecurity team, server admin, database whisperer, application analyst, GIS overlord, report writer, documentation gremlin, project manager, and reluctant code monkey—all rolled into one under-caffeinated, over-Googled human being. You’re welcome. And
Ever dreamed of wielding the awesome power of managing terabytes of data, only to be woken up by a 3 AM alert that says, “Transaction log full”? Welcome to the elite, underappreciated, caffeine-fueled world of the SQL Server DBA (Database Administrator). It’s not always glamorous. You won’t get a standing ovation for restoring the production database in 6 minutes flat.
I’ve always dreamed of working for Microsoft. In high school back in the Philippines, I imagined myself as a software engineer—writing code, building tools, and maybe even contributing to Windows itself. But unlike some of my classmates, I didn’t have my own PC. Instead, I lived in the school computer lab. My only access to technology was through shared lab
So, I’ve officially entered my “Azure era.”Yes, I’m still the solo IT guy. Yes, I still get asked if turning it off and on again will fix it (sometimes it does). But now, I’m doing all that plus mastering Azure like it’s the cloud-based boss level of my career. So… why Azure? Let’s break it down. 1. Because I Work
So there I was—halfway under a desk, tracing yet another mystery Ethernet cable (that led nowhere, by the way)—when my boss walked by and hit me with a corporate phrase so vague it might as well have come from a fortune cookie: “You need to start thinking like a manager.” Oh really? Buddy, I’m the only IT person here. I
Let’s get this out of the way: working solo in IT isn’t just a job — it’s an extreme sport. Except instead of medals, you get weird help desk tickets, 3 a.m. server alerts, and the unshakable knowledge that if anything breaks, it’s your fault. And you know what? Sometimes, after explaining for the fourth time that the Wi-Fi password
Now, please hold while I patch your router, block that ransomware, and stop Gerry from downloading malware. Again. Oh, you think being a network and cybersecurity engineer is cool? Glamorous, even? You imagine dark rooms lit by cascading lines of code, high-fiving your team after foiling international hackers, and maybe a dramatic “We’re in!” moment every other Tuesday? Yeah, that’s
Let me start with the truth: I didn’t choose the self-study path because I thought I was some kind of untapped genius. I chose it because I checked the price of a cybersecurity bootcamp and nearly choked on my instant noodles. I want to become a network and cybersecurity engineer. Not because it sounds cool (okay, maybe a little), but