Musings 3.26

I am sitting here now

at our makeshift balcony

looking up the stars, wondering

when can we ever reach them?

when can we ever see them

in their full glory?

when can we ever be one with them

again? 

because "we're all made of star stuff"

said the guy who's probably

one with them again.

In my ears several voices singing

despite the night's stillness

In my eyes several colors swimming

despite the night's darkness

On my skin cold breeze creeping

despite this being an early 

summer night.

Funnily enough I am feeling

several things at once:

no single feeling surrendering

to the others, 

no single sensation engulfing

my whole being.

Just teeny tiny pokes of this and that

First Day Chronicles 2.0

08.22.22

I never really did well on first days.

Today was the first day of being back to face-to-face classes since the COVID-19 pandemic started. Yesterday, I conditioned myself that I am beyond prepared for my first F2F class as a public school teacher.

I have never been more wrong.

Perhaps in this profession, there really is nothing that's certain. Even though I have quite prepared myself for this day, major bumps still rattled me.

Husband and I were too excited to go to school that we left home at 4AM. By 5AM, I was already at school. It was quite chilling to be the only one in the building while it's still dark. I was reminded of the ghost stories my colleagues told me, and I was literally trembling while opening the door to our Math Center. But my trembling quickly went away as I opened my bag to bring out my things, finding out that I left my phones at home! What a way to start the day! I am now devoid of any means of real-time communications with my heads, my colleagues, and my husband. Then I found out that I also left my masterlist of students at home, so I had to print another copy. But then I didn't have my phone and the center didn't have LAN or WiFi networks, and my files were saved in my cloud storage. I had to go down my classroom to connect to the LAN there, then go back up the center to print my masterlist. 

Then came my first period class. It was my advisory class. Things were actually going quite well until 7AM. My teacher's schedule indicates that by 7AM, there should already be another teacher taking over. 7:15 came and went, then 7:30, then 7:45, then 8:00. Since I have planned for activities that will last only for an hour, I was already quickly running out of ideas of what I will have my students do. Then I saw one of my co-teachers in the grade level, that's when she told me that we were actually supposed to stay in our advisory class until 9:00. Apparently it was announced through our faculty group chat, which I was not able to read since I f-cking left my phones at home. So of course, as a teacher, I needed to think quickly. Good thing I was able to come up with first day activities that could kill time without looking like I was only killing time.

Then, I went to my 2nd class for the day at 9AM. On the class program, my schedule for this class was only until 9:50AM. But we were having fun with the class introduction activities, perhaps too much fun, that we actually ran out of time. It was quite embarrassing that the next teacher had to literally call me out to tell me that she's supposed to go next.

Third class came and at least this one was quite an enjoyable class. However, there was just one tiny little hiccup: I forgot my "lines." While I was discussing my classroom rules, I had to pause for about 15 seconds to remember what I wanted to say. I then resorted to the classic TV commercial "Bawal ang pork..." but my students, being Gen Z, were not able to relate. 

Then I had my long break for an hour. By the last period, I was already  exhausted and dazed and confused. I entered the wrong f-ckng classroom. It was so awkward when the class's real teacher at that time knocked and asked, "Ma'am, may conflict po yata tayo sa schedule?" And when I checked mine, I realized I was supposed to be on the other side of the building. I apologized profusely to the teacher. It was a good thing that she was so understanding.

So there, no matter how much I prepared myself, I wasn't. 

I guess I'll just have to make it up for the rest of the school year.

*1st draft written on the 1st day of class. Got too tired to finish it within the week. 

They left... and it's great!

I keep seeing profile picture updates from my former [private school] students who transferred out to another school. Each time I do, my heart leaps a little leap of joy.

This is not to be vindictive against my former employers. It's just that I love these students so much that I want them to explore their full potentials outside their safest littlest comfort zone — the school they grew up in. On retrospect of my student life, I know full well how detrimental thriving in a small comfort zone is.

It's a law of physics, "an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless an outside force acts upon it." It's the same with people. We tend to stay in our comforting little bubbles, because there's no one challenging us from the inside. We tend to become little robots, following only what's the norm inside our safe havens. Then, the moment we are forced out of our comfort zone after eons of staying in it, we falter. We trip and we fall, not knowing how to walk on a field with a different gravity with the place we were so comfortable with.

We tend to be complacent with what we do, exerting only the bare minimum to "survive." We do not exert our maximum efforts, thinking that "Hey, I was able to pass this way before; it turned out fine." When we are comfortable, we tend to laze away with the mediocrity. Because we were already triumphant with our bare minimum, we repeatedly act at exceedingly comfortable levels that we so often give creativity up in exchange for compliance. Yet we get rewarded. We get lionized just because we completed our  tasks — tasks that were so routinely done. 

Inside our comfort zones, we risk the danger of losing our sense of self. The more we are challenged, the more we know about ourselves. We learn what makes us tick, what requires us to quit. We find out the full potential of what we can contribute to the world we live in. Lounging too much in our comfort zones kills most of our opportunities to unleash our full potentials.

My students left their comfort zones... and that is great! This is not to vilify those who stayed, that is also perfectly okay. I just wish for their personal growth though, that they continually find ways to push outside their bubbles little by little. I wish that they try to push the walls they, and their environment, have built around themselves. I wish that they continually expand their horizons, making their comfort zones bigger and bigger as they grow older. #

Incoherent thoughts

Words don't flow through my mind as smoothly as they used to be. They now come in snippets; little bubbles of ideas that could be great when they stand alone, but all mucked up when put together.

I had read before an anecdote of a famous book author. In that short glimpse of his life one "fun fact" about him stood out to me: he writes whatever he thinks about at the moment no matter how mumbo-jumbo they may sound, yet his words weave together so well as if they were intended to be published to the world as meaningful as they were.

Perhaps it was the culture of his time. With less distractions, perhaps he could have had more time to sew the perfect word combinations. I cannot seem to have that anymore, that luxury of having nothing to distract me.

Please forgive me if this composition appears to be so incoherent. 

Between the last two sentences preceding this one, I already have spent several hours doing a lot, but achieving nothing really worthwhile. I opened all possible airways in our small house. I tended my twisted knee the way I know that can lessen the pain (it's already been a week since I twisted it, yet I don't have the courage to have it checked at the hospital). I played several card games with my fiancé. I aimlessly browsed through 3 different shopping apps offering an 8.8 sale. I kinda re-watched two Studio Ghibli movies (kinda, because it was set in English dub. I don't like English dubs. I prefer dubs in the original language). I talked with a friend about how he thinks he is depressed; I don't even know if I was able to help.

I smell like a pungent kilo of pressed garlic. I haven't bathed for two days, not because I'm lazy - it is so hot one cannot afford the choice to not take a bath! - but because my manghihilot told me not to take a bath for 3 days.

Just now my fiancé disturbed my train of thought. He was asking if I would like to have a TS cardigan. Like the fuck OF COURSE I DO. But I saw the price and backed up. I, we, have a wedding to plan. I don't want to have unnecessary spendings before the wedding.

Right now we're watching another movie. The Hitman's Wife Bodyguard. The man's gotta have his testosterone fix for today.

I cannot think straight now. I have to be off. 

PH Olympic High

 

The Big 4 of PH Olympic lineup during #Tokyo2020. Image from Philippine Star Facebook page.

#Tokyo2020 was a great Olympic run for the Philippines. For the first time ever, we heard our national anthem played on the awarding ceremony. It was a tear-inducing moment for a country that waited for almost a century for it to happen.

But more than that gold, it's the stories these athlete brought with them that resonates deep within our people's collective souls.

As a semi-avid follower of the Olympic games, I was able to follow Hidilyn Diaz's Olympic journey for that coveted gold. From her debut at Beijing in 2008, to her disheartening DNF at London in 2012 (where she was the PH flag bearer), to settling for silver at Rio in 2016, to that awe-inspiring golden lift at Tokyo - not to mention her mental health battle, especially when she was haphazardly included in the Oust Du30 matrix - Hidilyn proved to be the golden ray of sunshine the country needed in the time of the coronavirus pandemic. With her winning lift, she has also lifted the spirits of Filipinos here and abroad. Plus, her forgiving nature to those who wronged her is a real class act. 

Days later, it was Nesthy Petecio's turn to deliver the PH delegation's first silver medal on women's boxing. Just like her namesake, Nesthy was such a refreshing presence on the boxing ring. I have huge respect for LGBTQ+ athletes who choose to compete within the sex group they were born into. They are only being fair, that is, biologically. Nesthy dedicating her silver medal on the WOMEN'S boxing to the LGBTQ+ community in the Philippines is a refreshing way to honor the community coming from the athlete themselves. 

Eumir Marcial's bronze medal finish is a testament that good things come to those who wait. Eumir was already signed as a pro boxer under Manny Pacquiao's promotion and had one pro win. But he went back to amateur boxing, and waited for his turn to deliver his promise to his father: that he will bring home an Olympic medal. That he did spectacularly: his fights leading to the semifinals were one-round KO's. His fight with the Ukrainian was a really close fight, we couldn't have been more proud of his efforts in the ring. 

Perhaps the most poetic PH medal finish during Tokyo 2020 is Carlo Paalam's silver medal for the men's flyweight in boxing. Carlo used to be a scavenger, trading scraps for a little money. Now he's got an Olympic silver medal - made from cellphone scraps - which entitled him to at least 17M pesos worth of honorarium from public and private parties. No wonder he stared really hard at his medal during the awardimg ceremony - perhaps he was amused by the poetic justice boxing has afforded him. He also tagged along with him his coach of over a decade, the one who discovered his potential in a boxing park in Mindanao. 

Aside from these medalists we also saw some spirited efforts and uplifting stories from the other PH athletes in the Games. There's skateboarder Margielyn Didal, who captured the admiration of of the international sporting community with her optimistic charms and bright smiles. There's EJ Obiena who stood his ground on his right to a fair play by calmly but firmly explaining himself to the judges, even though it may not have given him a medal. There's the gymnastics darling Carlos Yulo who almost clinched a medal with his perfectly executed 2nd vault attempt. The golfers Yuka Saso, Bianca Pagdanganan, and Juvic Pagunsan, who all braved the heat in the golf course to finish their turns. There's also another boxer, Irish Magno who was the first Filipina boxer to ever join the Olympics. Swimmers Remedy Rule and Luke Gebbie and runner Kristina Knott holding - and Gebbie even breaking - the national records for their respective pet events. There's also rower Cris Nievares, who was the first Pinoy rower in five olympiads to join the competition. Judoka Kiyomi Watanabe who was the flag-bearer in the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony. Weightlifter Elreen Ando and shooter Jayson Valdez doing their absolute best to represent the country.

For a country seemingly distraught over its local stories in last few years, this batch of Olympic delegation is arguably the best batch to ever represent our country in the Games. We are lucky enough to have witnessed their fight during perhaps the most trying time of our lifetime.

Congratulations to all these athletes! Padayon!

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