Reklamo-fest

See, there's this teacher of mine...(I'm not mentioning names, so don't force me coz it's tempting)

And she doesn't know how to teach. Like every meeting she just reads the book, talks to herself and do some kind of sermon. Everything she says is already there in our book; she just translates it to Bisaya "so we'd understand further". The examples she gives are mediocre and they're stuff we learned in first year.

You know autism? Yeah, she kinds of has that. Coz autistic people's mirror neurons(those that mirror memories to recognize a familiar face or event) are broken so they can't look at people in the eye and everything is new to them. She doesn't establish eye contact with us. NOT.EVER. You know what she does? She just stares outside the window and talks and talks. She even doesn't face half of the class.

She uses a lot of time writing stuff on the board. We're left with nothing to do on our seats but wait, sometimes check our lip gloss, or, you know, send SMS messages.

She's as erratic as a tornado; she flings from one mood and another. One minute she's strict coz she has the oh-I'm-so-high-wtf-I'm-a-teacher attitude and the next she'll be like an orphaned pup.

Here's what I don't like the most. 5% of her grading comes from attendance (truants rally!) and a student gets a plus 2 on his/her final grade if s/he has a perfect attendance. First, this is supposed to be bawal. It's in the handbook baby. And i really told her that. When she heard it, she looked annoyed and told us, "This is academic freedom." Well, i dunno what is the scope of academic freedom so i just didn't push further. The I informed her that it was in the handbook that grading attendance is really bawal but she said it was okay. She even told us "Ayaw nyo ng plus?" ("You don't want to get bonus points?") My classmates mellowed. (They feigned?) they wanted the plus badly. Gawd.

Personally, I think she's doing too much. The 2point incentive may be okay, it's like a reward anyway. But the 5% is too much. It's like she's insecure of the attendance that she has to pay people to be there. See, if the student sees enough incentive enough in the class to actually go to class, then s/he will attend classes.

Last semester, I had a class under Mr. Rex Rola. He is a horror terror teacher in terms of grading. Like, last sem out of the four sections he handled, only four people passed his subject. Whew. (I'm darn lucky.) He is a brilliant brilliant man, with an exceptional mind and beautiful lecture skills. He never checked the attendance. Sometimes I'd go to class tapos ako lang isa ang estudyante. He didn't care. He even still lectured like the classroom was full. See, people who really go to class are the people who really are interested in the class.

I remember. I always felt sorry everytime I had to absent in Mr. Rola's class. I always learned something every day. I always felt like a wiser person every time I step out of F403. But now? I dunno. With her, it's an eternal reklamo-fest.

She makes schooling get in the way of my education.



PS. Things here are based on my reality. Get it? MY.REALITY. Besides, who told you to be here?

Aftermath

Sleep close to me
Thunders are over.

We crumpled the sheets
We spilled the wine
We interchanged our perfumes

And now I’m feeling
A mixture of ceremony
And embarrassment.

But it doesn’t matter.
It’s now just you and me
And the smoke
Fragrant with orchids
When you exhale
And the foam of euphoria
Slowly filling my head

Sleep close to me
As I recall
Traveling the landscapes
Of your skin
Sniff the mist of
Dewy lavender
On your hair

Did I not tell you
That every breath you take
Weaves a rhythm of peace
Across towns
And skies and hearts?

Did I not tell you
That the faint fold
In the bed you leave
When you turn the other side
Is left with a glimmering
Essence of apology?

But I won’t tell you anything.

Sleep close to me, my love
I will not wake you up..
Remember, we’ve just
Been to Neverland.

love. a choice.

i think, that love is a choice that one constantly has to make.

time and again we'll be confronted with realities that supercede understanding and compromise.
love vs home.
love vs family.
love vs friendship.
love vs career.

etc.

it's as if things are mutually exclusive.

so couples should learn to work to make things work.

they should constantly reaffirm that choice.
and stand by it.
fight for it.
live through it. :)

Pretty disoriented.

Read: Pretty and disoriented. hehe.
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Just came home from Manila, and Baguio and the 9th NDC. Oh well. We (Team C) did not make it till Octofinals but our team B (David and Tateen) went as far as semifinals. Making it til quarters was team B (Sam and Marj) and AdDU also had three speakers who got into top-ten-best-speakership. Top 6 yata si David, then top 5 si Sam, top 4 naman si Marj. (Hoot hoot!)

I feel so proud for the club. Andrew told me that the schools in NDC are already expecting AdDU to reach AT LEAST semis in most national tournaments. The 9th NDC was my first national tournament and I think I did okay naman. I gave it my all. That’s enough for me. And hey, I love debating. Win or lose. J

I met a lot of great people in NDC. Hahaha. Those whom I debated, ate, danced, and sang, got drunk with. Can’t wait for MPDC or Vismin. Or the next NDC.
And guess what, we won the bid. The 10th National Debate Championships will be held here in Davao City! Haha! At last! I won’t have to worry about funds regarding my not-last NDC

---------

I feel so tired. I dunno why…but I took three baths since yesterday evening. I missed Davao so much. Here is the list of things I made sure I did during my first hour back here.

*hugged my family
*gulped a glass of Davao water
*overflowed the laundry baskets
*SMSed friends
*asked about AdDU HS training
*changed into comfy Davao clothes

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I finally got hold of the paper which had my poem in it. (Sunstar Davao Oct. 21, 2007; Sunday) Boy, was I proud. My poem sat next to stories written by members of the Davao Writers Guild. :) The poem is Minatamis [http://implicitinfluence.blogspot.com/2007/07/minatamis.html]. It is an “erotic poem” clothed with the metaphor of a plateful of the famous Filipino dessert, Minatamis.

My next goal is to go to Silliman. I’ll pass some of my poems to their National Writers Workshop---the biggest writing workshop in the country. The Silliman Writers Workshop is where Palanca awardees are bred. Besides, I can cross-train (debate!) with them Silliman debaters there too. :)

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I have good vibes this coming sem. *wink wink*

Coffee is the closest thing to love.

Yes, I am addicted to coffee. I was even laughing in my head when I read the photocopied paper in Psychology about addiction. It’s because I can fully relate to everything it talked about.

I repeat, I am addicted to coffee. I drink the instant ones, the brewed ones and eat the candied ones. It causes my heart beat to race. I sometimes hear my pulse because I think I just drank a lot of coffee. There are days when coffee to me is breakfast. One mug and I’m off to go. It’s like that. My mom gets mad but I don’t care. This is what addiction is.

Sometimes I feel guilty about it. I’ve already heard from a lot of people that drinking a lot of coffee is not good for the body. In fact, I have this friend who had a frightening story about her friend, who did not sleep for five days straight. She gagged on a coffee shop like someone who is epileptic. She lost consciousness and was rushed to the nearest hospital. This is all because of coffee addiction. Though it scares me a little, coffee to me is a love that turned into a vice.

Yes, the craving experience mentioned in the paper totally happens to me. My day isn’t complete without it. I am like turned-on by everything that smells like coffee. When I had my Humanities 1 class last summer, we were tasked to paint using coffee. I discovered that painting was so much fun when you use coffee. After the arts activity, I actually thought of painting my room with coffee. I just wanted to wake up to the scent of it.

I'm loving my Psych classes and our prof Sir Sanchez was right. When you eat/drink something, it doesn’t only involve your taste buds. It is a different experience. To quote a classmate, “eating is the highest form of glory because saints, warriors, terrorists and scientists stop whatever they are doing just to eat”. Sir said eating/drinking also involves the sense of smell. Look at how Jollibee effectively raised sales because of their “Langhap Sarap” tag. It also involves the sense of sight, which is why microwaveables don’t appeal to us that much. Sometimes it is joined with the sense of touch. I feel this whole experience everytime I drink coffee. The aroma itself felt so good I can almost taste it.

Though coffee is so much a part of my system now that if I don’t drink coffee for the day I become so sleepy during late afternoon, I limit myself to two cups of coffee a day at most. At random times of the day, I also eat coffee candy. I control a little because I don’t want to gag in front of class someday. I still love my sleep too. This is why even when my addiction can be cured, I don’t think I have the need to. It’s not at all very harmful anyway. I’ve also read that sometimes smelling a certain food will satisfy cravings. So I’m glad there are coffee candies sold outside the school.

As you can notice, this blog entry is a testimony of my coffee addiction. That alone will tell you how addicted I am. For the record, I’m happy that I’m addicted to coffee.

At least I’m not doing drugs.

Sweet Matthew

Sweet Matthew
What am I losing you to?

The me who loves you
And the me who loves me
Compete
Like two big plates
Of viands on a
Buffet table

And I wait for your
Next infidelity
So precariously…

Sweet Matthew
What am I losing you to?

I’ve read the papers
I’ve read her letters
And baby asks too much.

I don’t know how to answer
When there is sweat on my ankles
Dried brandy at the
Sides of my lips.

It’s apparent.
I grip at the ends of your mercy.
Even when I tend your abode
Even when I tend to
Your immediate desires.

Sweet Matthew,
Come back home.
Baby asks too much.

*I Googled "Matthew" since Matthew is the subject of this poem. Screened images and chose this Matthew as model for my poem. His name is Matthew Bomer. Cutie eh? =)

HEAR THIS.

I have something to say.

I think, that something is just THERE to make things wrong. It is an implicit force driven to clothe intentions with wrong intentions, of kindness with deceit and of truth with fallacies.

It is a covering; like that of a kwek-kwek...thick, ugly and consuming.

It blurs our perceptions of people, moreover, it filters the good things that people give to us. It rearranges the sequence of sensitive events, those which break hearts, homes and institutions.

It is the reason why when one offers to help, one is usually accused of having motives, or of not helping enough. It is the reason why we always think twice if one says s/he love us ("i love you.." "really?") but we don't think twice when somebody tells us that s/he hates us ("i hate you").

It is always determined to make things wrong. It is an unseen enemy. Unsought. Unstoppable. Inevitable.