juvenile delinquent

So I skipped PolSci 160 and ended up going to ICTUS' 28th birthday party - where we sang for the 5pm mass celebrating the Immaculate Concepcion. To top that, after stretching our vocal muscles, we proceeded to the tambayan and laughed our hearts out as Trevor, Migs, Monsee and Julian hid behind the life-sized 3D letters Jako and the (WOOHOO) seccom came up with for the exhibit. And did I mention that we were eating lugaw and pandesal from Pan de Manila because today is Sacrifish? In fact, I've been eating lugaw all day - I daresay I'm the ICTUS mem who's eaten the most servings of lugaw. But ssh, that's a secret.

For this sem, this is the first time I've skipped class. I'm actually a bit worried because we haven't met Ma'am Jamon for the longest time in PolSci 160, and I just ditched?!?! But anyway, what's done is done and DONE.

Right now, I feel like commemorating every bit of kagaguhan I've ever in class. I was a good student in grade school and high school - if not a bit pretentious - so I don't have any memories of being a hard-headed delinquent from when I was 16 and younger, but the moment I entered UP... Totally different story.

Math17, freshman yr. Our teacher, Sir Montes, was a liberated young man almost-fresh from college himself, handling a class of Chemical Engineering students and a handful of non-eng'g kids. I was one of the non-eng'g kids; I was the only Econ student there, which had its perks in a way. Back then, I would turn up late for class - mainly because I hated Math, partly because it was a 1PM class and I loved to wake up late. And when I did turn up early, that meant I was in a good mood, so RS and I would sing random songs from our seats at the back of the classroom. I'm pretty sure our voices rang loud and clear, but Prof. Montes never complained. Hm. He was too nice. Hope he's happy in Germany.

Econ131, junior yr. Yet another numbers class; I hated attending it because I always answered the recitation questions incorrectly, and I hated the disappointed expression on Ma'am Navarro's face. So one day, when I wasn't feeling high and perky as usual, I convinced myself I was sick with sore throat, and I trooped over to the infirmary to get a "check up". Of course, the doctor didn't find anything obviously wrong with me, but I really didn't feel well enough to combat two hours of derivatives so I just spent the morning in bed. And then I returned to class the next meeting bearing an official excuse slip.

Erm yeah, I realized I don't have a lot of wanna-ditch-class moments. In fact, for most of my classes, I loved attending the lessons. I'm pretty sure I have near-perfect attendance for majority of the classes I've ever enrolled in, but there's this one class that stands out easily above the rest:

English12, freshman yr. It helped that I had some sort of crush on the teacher. He was an amazing lecturer, seriously. He never told us to think in any particular way, and I remember that one time he even told us,

"If you get out of this classroom thinking what I think,
then I will have failed you as a teacher."

But before you start thinking I attended that 7AM class without fail because I had a thing for the prof, think again. I loved it because of the lessons; the interesting professor was just a bonus. World literature, the subject's called, and we discussed The Iliad, The Decameron, Inferno, Sinbad, and etc, all under the careful supervision of our teacher. My classmates were pretty amazing, too. Although I never got to befriend them past the point of mere acquaintance, I appreciated their insights, and their ways of thinking, and it was a class where I felt free to talk about what I really wanted to talk about. Where sounding stupid didn't matter because all views were accepted.

Which makes me wonder, again, why I signed up to study Econ.