To my dear Lord, my loving father, and true owner of my heart,

First, I want to say thank you so much for a peaceful enrollment. I look back  on  all my past enrollments – the very inefficient system, the super long lines, the scorching heat, the nagging uncertainty if there are still remaining slots  – and I am amazed at how easy today’s enrollment has been.

You are the king of kings, glorious and majestic; yet You are the one who humbled yourself to pursue us who have turned our backs from you. This year, You have relentlessly pursued and romanced me, revealing more and more of Your mighty, amazing, tender self.  You have broke through countless situations for me, opened doors I never imagined entering. Most importantly, You have led me in a major crossroad, the outcome of which plagued me for weeks. It was a decision that would change me forever and would affect those who are dear in my heart. I remember that I begged and pleaded with you to push me in the direction of your light, to please show me where you want me to go. I cried and cried to hear Your voice.

And You have led me. In my desperation, You have shown me what your mighty hand can do, how healing your love can be – it drives away traces of inhibitions and fear.

But today, I lay bare my heart to you, and you’ll probably find an unhealthy dose of fear and a swirling mass of confusion. As You have shown more of yourself, I find that my trust in You will be tested more, too. This past few months, You have spoken to me in urgent words, many of which I have chosen to ignore. You opened my eyes that I may see, but I chose to turn my head the other side.

Today, once again, You have led me into a crossroad. And You know how much this unnerves me; it had reduced me again to a confused coward, afraid to take another step. Whichever way I go, I think I would hurt people close to me. You told me that I should strive to know your heart; which way does your heart point?  To somehow find my own allotted work, I should search the deepest inclination of my heart and follow it; but how do I know it is attuned to your good, pleasing and perfect plan for me? I have so many more questions Lord that You alone can answer. I feel a pain that no amount of fresh milk, a pint of strawberry ice cream, or wordly love can ever heal.  I’m plagued by doubts that your words alone can pacify.  

Today I  lay open my heart -  the darkness that You can find there, the lines of questions that I can put into words, and the countless more that I cannot express –  and it is only You who can make a sense to them all.

So, the semester has finally ended.

And the wait–for grades– has just started!  And how do I actually feel?

I feel hopeful. Well, I do have a hunch I’m going to pass all of my subjects (really, hopefully). The problem is if I’ve reached my grade goals. Oh well, there’s nothing that I can do anymore about it. ^_^

But that’s not really what I’ll talk or rather write about today. It’s going to be about us who are left behind….

Left behind where? Well, in the dormitory. You see, I’m not able to go home that much since I live in a province far away (I live in Mindanao). That means very expensive fare. So I usually go home only on Christmas breaks. If we’re lucky–meaning there’s a promo on plane fare– I’m allowed to go home on semestral breaks. This has two prominent consequences: I leave the dorm on the very last day, and I stay in different people’s houses, which are my mom’s friends.  This break for example, I’ll be staying in Batangas. My mom’s “pr” skills really scares me sometimes, she knows too many people! Hehehe…^_^

It’s not that I’m complaining. I’m actually very grateful that I have a roof over my head. And the owner’s are very kind and hospitable. It’s just that the last days just before the semester ends (that is, if I’m not overwhelmed by exams and requirements) make me….lonely.

As I see my friends leave one by one, eager to go home, it makes me wish that when I go pack my bags, I’ll be going home and not to someone else’s house. Today, I think there are only two of us left in my corridor. The silence is deafening; I can go maximize my laptop’s volume and no one would reprimand me for being noisy, or say that it’s silent hours already. The dorm is a potential horror movie location.

Really, I think I just miss home. I know that I’ve been gone long enough because everytime I go home, there’s someting new. Like we already have a new gate, the construction of which I did not even see, the road going to our house is already cemented and again, I did not even witness that.

I also miss my pre-college friends. Batch reunions? What are those? I’ve never been on one (well, that’s also because I studied in a  high school not in my town). I’ve never been in any of my friends’ debuts either! I just go drool over all the pictures they’ve uploaded. Worse, in the rare times that I do get to meet them, I feel out of place. That’s because most of them study in the same university or different university but same city, so they have a lot to talk about.  And I can’t relate with any of those. Dont get me wrong, we do still communicate, what with text messages and all the social networking sites available today, but that’s just different from meeting them face to face.

Most of all, I miss my dad’s cooking. There’s really nothing like home-cooked food. Hehehe…^_^

So, what do I do on sembreaks? I buy or borrow a couple of dvd’s—today I only borrowed Nodame Cantabile’s Season 2, and I also borrow a couple of books–I have Captivating (Unveiling the mystery of a Woman’s Soul) by John and Stasi Eldredge, A Divine Revelation of Hell by Mary Baxter, and What’s Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancy.  Powerful books, I’ve been told. I hope I can finish at least one.  And of course, I help with the household chores with whomever house’s I’m in. 

And I sleep early. ^_^

Thus said, I’ll be off to Batangas tomorrow.

Happy sembreak everyone! See you all next sem!

Surprise, surprise!

Yes, yes, I am still alive. Hehe..

It’s been a long while, eh?

And because it has been a loonng while, so much has happened–so many inspiring and heart-warming experiences as well as let’s-not talk-about-it moments, and late nights because of papers, exams, papers, papers, papers…mind you, this semester is not finished yet. I still have three more requirements to go. Oh, and did I mention these three are papers?!

I realized that there are so many things I would like to write about, but everytime I face Kyouya (my laptop), I cannot seem to organize my thoughts. Or I cannot find the exact words. Or my mind drifts away to some other dimension. Hehehe…

However, today, I would try my best to tell you my feelings towards teaching after a semester (my first semester!) of  being  an education student.

It has been a very, very….challenging semester. Many are the times that my subjects exhaust all of my stored energy, tried and stretched my patience, tested my limited abilities.

And in the end, I feel both determined and scared.

Wait! The determination thing you can probably understand. But fear? Oh yeah, you got it right, teaching is one scary job!
Why?

I’m not going to lie and say that I really love kids or I now love teaching. I have yet to find the patience in dealing with a bunch of difficult kids, and I have yet to experience teaching in the real sense. I have not even experienced nor reached half of my journey.

 An educator is, most of the time, unappreciated– by the students, by the parents, by the employers. For every student you may inspire, there are many more who refuse to be moved. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, nobody will listen to you. Sometimes, it’s going to be boring for you. Tiring, too…  

 
 It’s not those that I’m afraid though. It’s the realization that I am, at the moment, so ill-equipped to tackle the responsibilities of an educator.  Nangangapa pa ako. It’s the realization that so much power is given to a teacher to mold and influence a student. And if I am not well-prepared, if I am not careful, I could very easily, discourage, hinder, and even destroy a student’s development, without noticing it at all.

In one of my subjects, we were tasked to conduct a mini-seminar  for parents on how to practically help their children in reading, math and science. During the seminar, as I was assigned to the children’s team together with my groupmates Jau and Jam. Ha! I will not hesitate to say that we were very easily overpowered by the children.  Indeed, classroom management is a hard thing to accomplish if you are dealing with more than fifty, energetic, super excited students. Now I know why elementary teachers are sometimes strict and “masungit”. They need to be; else the children won’t listen to them at all. I was stunned at how the three of us could not pacify the children on our own, while a single teacher alone could make them silent and sit properly. I cannot believe that we just handled them for only two hours, I thought we were there the whole afternoon! I had no energy left. Indeed, I still have so many more things to learn. Things like getting that right mix of care and discipline. As Martin Buber (if I remember correctly) said, education worthy of the name is education of one’s character.

Oh! No, I’m not finished yet..Hehe.. I just want to share what Profa, my spanish teacher said to us on our last day in class. Profa was one of my best teachers this sem; she conducted a very fun class, but she made sure we are really learning. She said something of this sort: “I consider you my children. Your failures are also my failures, your successes are also mine. I hope to see you as very successful individuals someday…senor Abiog as a doctor, senor Ferrer as a film director . It is always a teacher’s joy to find her students surpass her own achievements.”

You know, I do not want to be one of those nameless, sometimes faceless teachers that students readily forget upon classes’ end. I want to be one of those whom students recall rather fondly. I want to somehow, in some way,  affect their lives, leave a piece of God’s wisdom behind, instill in their characters enough discipline…

Well, echoing Captain Shang of Mulan, “We have a long way to go!”…

Thus said, I would prefer to say that this profession I now pursue is a path that I am determined to learn to love, appreciate and excel. Aja!

Indeed, I have much to thank God for—all those people I met, those class discussions I would never forget, the realities of life that I have seen, all the lessons I have learned. I am indeed very, very blessed.

September 21, 2009

This is going to be a picture-filled post! yey!

Last Sunday, my roommate and I decided to go on a date at the UP-Ayala TechnoHub’s Pizza Hut. Actually, we just didn’t convince anyone else to have lunch with us. Hehehe..^_^

my roommate and I, enjoying our food ^_^

Now, now, it’s not that we had so much money to spare (it’s a bit pricey for students), but because my beloved roommate got a promo coupon that entitled us to a free carbonara and pizza for a minimum purchase of 100. Yupyup, 100 pesos only! Wow, they must have been desperate for customers. When we got there though, we were the only customers, which I liked. The atmosphere was so cozy and warm. So, we decided to eat outside the store so we can have a good view of the gardens. Al fresco dining, so to speak. Oh, and our attendant’s name was Caramel. Is that a cool name, or what? Shall I rather say sweet (instead of cool)?? 

hmmm...what we ate...

that's our view! ^_^

 

I had a bottomless red tea, mud pie sundae, and the free carbonara pasta–all for 148 pesos. my roommate had bolognese pasta, a caribbean smoothie, and the pizza. Well, we shared the pizza. Needless to say, we both went home really full and happy. *grin*

 I just remembered the three other times I’ve been to Pizza Hut. The first one was with Jayjay, where between the two of us, our bill was a stagerring 600 pesos. I could not, for the life of me, remember how that happened; had my mother known that, she would have killed me. I had my remaining allowance on a very strict budget the week after that. Hehe… The other one was with Beryl, where our french fries, which was in the appetizers section, became our dessert. Talk about slooww service.

 

 The third was our all-girls Valentine celebration.  Happy thoughts on that one, but it almost ended in disaster. I could still remember Brendie’s mild irritation to our attending waiter. 

 

So, so, what brought on this post? Nothing really, kumain kasi ulit ako ng pasta ngayon. Not in Pizza Hut though, but Long Island’s- the one beside our main library. That, and  the rain. What! How is rain connected to food? Well, my dear reader,  I like to write when it’s raining.

Writing, coffee, and the rain….ahhh….simply wonderful…

I’ve actually always liked food. Not just pizza and pasta, but food in general–be that street food, scrumptious desserts, or foreign recipes. Provided that they’re edible and taste wonderful. ^_^ If you ask my friends the simplest way to bribe me, they’ll probably tell you to just feed me. Hehehe… Don’t get me wrong, I don’t eat much (as in full plate), rather I eat a little bit of everything. Often are the times that I plan to eat out in different restaurants (not necessarily high-end restos, mind you), just so I can have varieties of dining experiences. Not that I can aptly describe how a certain food tastes like, and put it into writing, like the food critics. Hmmm…mental check: increase vocabulary and improve writing skills.

And now, my dear readers, I’ll leave you  food for your eager minds, from C.S. Lewis’  Till We Have Faces.

“Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.”