Overwhelmed

My German professor asks this one day: “In the Philippines, do your parents have a say about when you’re supposed to get married? Or how you’re supposed to get married? Say, if you parents tell you that you have to marry this person, would you have to?”

The class answers in the negative. A lot of head shaking occurs.

Professor: “But if your parents tell you that you can’t marry a person, you wouldn’t marry that person?”

The class nods. And everyone looks at each other, realizes a strange collective predicament, and laughs nervously.

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The funny thing about the Filipino culture is that there aren’t a lot of unbreakable standards. There are a lot of traditions and superstitions, but most, if not all, are subject to the preference of a fickle general public. At least, from how my Gen X brain sees it.

I was born in 1991, a decade or two after the OFW phenomenon brought back – in figurative balikbayan boxes – ‘alien’ ideas from overseas. Growing up, I read only English novels and spoke English 80% of the time. (Because I was in school 80% of the time, hanging out with friends who fancied the Cartoon Network, Goosebumps, The Babysitters Club, etc.) I swear I could hear Japanese songs playing out in the radio of my childhood. I can still sing Pizzicato Five’s Sweet Soul Revue and Globe’s Feel Like Dance – in garbled Japanese, of course. Although I studied Philippine History as an educational prerequisite for graduation, I can’t express in detail – more so with passion – the lives of del Pilar, Mabini, etc. In fact, I’m probably better at tracing the genealogy of Potterdom’s Malfoy Family – a true shame, since that clan’s but fiction.

When I matured – I daresay – it became common for people my age to get pregnant, to get someone pregnant, to get married early, or to work in a call center even when they didn’t want to. It became so common, in fact, that such stories – which started out as whispered news bits shared in the most innocuous of places – became fodder for dinner conversations with mere acquaintances. Something like, “Oh, by the way, Y is seven months pregnant. Saw it on Facebook. Seems she’s getting married this weekend.” And the reply goes, “Oh, good for her then. I hope she’s happy. Can you pass the soy sauce, please?”

This is not a condescending rant. At least it is not meant to be. Just because I have a degree, am not pregnant, and am not fearful for my financial future doesn’t mean I am putting my own lifestyle on a shop display window. This is simply an observation. The petty rambling of an overwhelmed 20-something in Manila, during an era of change so constant you don’t even notice it. I can name more talents from Johnny’s Entertainment than I can enumerate senators of the Philippines. I don’t know the latest updates about GMA’s health, but I have heard that Robin from How I Met Your Mother apparently can’t have kids. I don’t really know why my country doles out days off work, but I don’t complain because that only gives me more time to waste on Tumblr with other fangirls scattered all over the world.

Is it my fault I’m clueless, overwhelmed, and passive? Perhaps. It may be the fault of my parents’ generation, but its own ignorance can’t possibly be what it wanted for itself, right? In any case, I’ve always thought my situation ordinary. I wonder how many people out there realize the same about their own lives. Or existence, whichever.

Emergency Plans

What does one do when one realizes one is becoming dim? Not that I've ever fancied myself as being Mensa-class, but the frequency of my English slurring is honestly quite alarming. Written, it appears I've lost the ability to communicate properly as well. I'm pretty sure all this is caused by the fact that I haven't read anything challenging in a long time, and 90% of my daily thoughts are concentrated on Arashi, domestic chores, Arashi, how horrible the traffic on the way to the office is, and Arashi. So basically, Self-Centered Question of the Week is, 'OMG, my endangered brain cells are dying at a faster rate, whatdoIdo?'

Do me a favor and please don't answer that.

Did you know? that in German/Deutsch nouns are capitalized? [Every single noun, yes.] And Did you know? that each Noun has a gender? So das Auto is neuter, der CD Player is male, and die Nummer is female. I'd like to curse my poor imagination, but alas, even doing so won't provide this post some excitement, so here's some Mark Twain for you.

An Excerpt from The Awful German Language by Mark Twain

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way... In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:

'Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?'

'Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.'

'Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?'

'Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.'

Repetitive questions regarding my future are all worth it, when I'm granted laughtrips like this. Wishing you a great day/night/drama-moment-in-your-customized-universe-with-insert-favorite-artist-here and hoping you learn something to interest you in the next few moments.

finally, i belong?

The Normal Curve looks like this:

For the first time in my life, I am Normal.

Like something straight out of a cheesy American movie plot - of a type so depressing you dare not shed tears - my existence staged its peak during high school. (Aren't I too young to be going through a midlife crisis?) These college days have filtered by in a succession of multi-colored pixels compressed to form teenage girls in sailor outfits, and I don't remember anything huge or life changing that happened to me in the last four years. No falling in and out of love. No tears caused by an intrepid, close-knit Catholic school faculty. Definitely no lasting effort to reinvent myself for my own sake. For four years, life just happened. Only it didn't happen remarkably enough.

I would offer my entire Harry Potter collection - novellas and all - to be one of those girls who bloom in college. The type to excel so rapidly my progress'll shock everyone. The type to register any progress at all. But I'm past my prime. I've shown all I could show in high school, when my world was smaller, and the other fish liked my scales well enough to think they shine. Here, in the microcosm of the bigger world, I am fish feed. I am the wriggling worm whales look at when they're unsure of their size. And when they see me, their doubts evaporate. Yes. Compared to some, I'm good enough. Or so I think a whale would think.

Consider this my rant page. Or a neon-flagged blog post in a sea of angst-filled soliloquys. The cutesy, witty site mast fooled you, dinnit? I'm your resident Holden Caulfield, just less eloquent. A perfect, well-balanced life can do tortures to an idle brain.

Here's to hoping I'm just hormonal.

learning by teaching

I read in an ad for a volunteers' teaching center some years ago that you learn 90% of what you teach. Whether this is true or not, I've never been bothered to confirm, though it must be true if teachers generally subscribe to it. Why else would they assign reports as part of a standard curriculum then? Granted, it could also be because: (1) they can't think of new ways to grade their students; (2) they want the rest of the class to learn from kids their age; or, (3) they enjoy making students' lives hell. Whichever.

Since high school, I've been convinced that I am a curse when it comes to group reporting. I don't recall a single report I did with groupmates where everything went perfectly - although maybe this is only due to my propensity to remember the worst of the worst. I remember this particular report for Comm3 about ethos, pathos and logos - and, big surprise, I can't even recall exactly what they're supposed to be - where my part of the report dragged on FOREVER, leaving very little time for the rest of my groupmates to do their part. And Sir Dave... well, he's nice, but he can't exactly go around giving time extensions to students who can't use their reporting time wisely.

If I relayed to you, dear nonexistent reader, a comprehensive account of my encounters with the horrors of group reporting, this entry would span the length of an entire FB homepage - and note that this blog's font is tiny. So to save time and effort, why don't we zone in on a particular event that will serve both as evidence for my argument, and as an interesting conversation piece for parties when drunk people decide to play the let's-embarrass-each-other game.

I promised myself that I wouldn't blog about this, as it's too irritating to think about without resorting to hair-pulling antics. But anyway.

Psych108 (Filipino Psychology) is a fairly lax subject. Requirements: the one thing our readings have been focused on for most of the semester, the concept of kapwa. Apparently, it's the Filipino core value that every nationalist scholar has been trying to unearth beneath all those other qualities the Americans tried to inculcate in us. So shrewdly, our teacher made sure kapwa was the center of everything we did in class: group activities, team building disguised as pakontest, questions on readings disguised as group performances, a group paper, a group performance...

The day of our performance, most of my groupmates - who are a batch younger, although we all belong to the School of Econ - had exams in some of the most horrible subjects I've ever had to go through in all my four years at SE. Naturally, given my thick-faced nature, I volunteered to do the powerpoint for the performance - we had settled on doing a skit inspired by Hiraya Manawari and revolving around the idea that the Americans tried to instill 'unnatural' values in us through the textbooks they made our kids read during the early 1900's. It took me SEVEN HOURS to finish that powerpoint; I am honestly very proud of it, because almost each slide has a video or SFX, and I gathered all the pictures despite my crappy Internet connection.

Given I spent seven hours on that thing, and I started working on it late at night, and I had to wake up at six the next morning to get to the seven AM class that I could not afford to miss, I SLEPT FOR JUST ONE HOUR. Normal to others, yes, but a highly disturbing thought for me, a girl who reverts to zombie mode if forced to function with less than six hours of snoring. Surprisingly, though, I held up pretty well, even given my poor experience with lack of sleep. Until the report proper, that is.

The man who set up the LCD projector had told me NOT to step on any of the wires he had laid out on the floor near my feet. He had told me that if I put a single toe on that extension wire near my left foot, the LCD would die, and so would our group report. I told him I understood his instructions perfectly; I had spent SEVEN HOURS on this one twenty-slide strong ppt - I was not going to put all that hard work to waste. And so the play began. The speakers weren't working so well - tough luck, but we tarried on. Our lead actress didn't seem to have internalized her role properly - heck, at least she's trying. And now, now, it's my part -

Oops. Did I step on the wire? Why is the wall suddenly a spotless black?

You get the idea. Surely. Another mishap care of yours truly. The good news is that none of them felt like I was at fault for our disastrous performance - and to be honest, even I don't think it was all my fault. The bad news is that things would have gone a lot better if the ppt had worked; after all, things we work SEVEN HOURS on can't be all that worthless when applied, can they?

This whole thing has unleashed in me a fresh fear that I'll bungle up my next group report, in Geog105 (Economic Geography) this time. I mean, how good can your report be if you're tasked to answer the question: What is the role of economic geography in the development of different countries? Attempting to answer that would be a lot like attempting to answer the question Why do birds have wings? only to find out you weren't supposed to research on the topic - you were expected to say, Because they were destined to fly. Or something as in-your-face as that.

sucking up the subtle way

Here's an idea. When you're writing a paper, do you honestly say what's on your mind, disregarding what your teacher might think?

Case in point: In my Global Studies 197 class on Cultures and their Global Entanglements, our course coordinator is obviously against (economic) inteconnectedness aka Globalization aka free trade, which, being an Econ major, I'm predisposed to tolerate, if not welcome. I can tell she really loathes it, even when she doesn't show open hostility when the topic is brought up, because she keeps showing us films like The Corporation, Bordertown, and Manufactured Landscapes, which show the butt-ugly side of globalization.

Despite being shown the ugly truth, however, I still write reflection papers for globalization. I can't help giving it "the benefit of the doubt", given people like Muhammad Yunus, and concepts like positive-sum theories, and teachers like Dr C who say we should keep sending OFW's abroad because they're the only ones keeping this country afloat. I have never considered writing a paper against globalization - before now. I briefly toyed with the idea of seeing things from Ma'am's POV even once because, after all, some "side effects" of interconnectedness really are vomit-inducing, and I really do want her to think I have some semblance of a heart. The disgusting fact is I don't want to clash against her. I'm non-confrontational, after all.

What I'm trying to ask is: Do most students write papers that really contain what they think? Or does a large fraction of the student population write papers that are "doctored" so they're forced to fit with the teacher's line of thinking? It's a pointless question in the UP case, but I was wondering how essays were done elsewhere...

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.