Prayer check-- granted or still pending?

This year, my prayer is that may I soar and hunt and dive and kill (figuratively) like a great owl.
(c) Owl design on Landyacht longboard, by Andreas Preis

Last year, there were a handful of things that I prayed for. So, before the month of June ends, I want to look back and see whether God has been looking kindly at me this year.

I actually just had six things I prayed for last year - a desire to keep on growing, my teaching career, my writing career, being focused and fueled, loving others and proclaiming God's love. Let's see if my simple prayers had been answered...

Accreditation as I see it

Dali,
manghabol kita ka ramig kag tun-og kang bag-ong bun-ag nga adlaw.

This is a late post of my personal snapshots taken of the fuzz that is called AACUP Level 1 Accreditation. These photos are the sights that I rose up to one morning (December 10th, if I'm not mistaken) when we stayed overnight at school to prepare for it:

 The fog makes the oval behind the mango trees look as if a hundred invisible sprinters has started an early run on it, and disappeared in a cloud of dust. This is just outside the School of Education building.

Amazing moments that transpired so far on my 27th year

Amazed.

 Alternate title: My first semester as a part-time instructor in a college situated in a non-urban environment

Also: How life has been so far, for the first whole year (it’s not actually a year but I feel like it has been) that I spent in a non-urban environment

I know I do this all the time. I come to you and delight in you and then I leave you because I become too busy with my life. But remember this, you’re always in my mind.

Teacher and slam poet Taylor Mali performing "What teachers make"

I came across this video from Aussie blogger, Eden Riley's Edenland and I'm thankful she shared this video because this poem performed on stage by Taylor Mali, who is, according to his site, http://www.taylormali.com, "one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of poet."

Anyway, this pretty much shook me to my core, being a bum that I am right now, doing nothing except blog and maybe accept a few odd writing and editing jobs that kind friends throw at me, felt that I really have ignored my destiny.


I know I should teach. Again. I know I should, but then, at this point in my life, after all the disheartening experiences and encounters that I have had in my three years of teaching, I feel like I don't want to be in that place again. It is very sad because I want to teach again, but I just lack the heart.

 Taylor Mali, who is "a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching," with his works such as "What teachers make," is an inspiration. My desire to teach wanes from time to time when I remember all those ugly experiences that I've had with bosses and colleagues who should have been the first persons to encourage you. But then I guess, I'll just have to take that leap of faith, as they say, and just keep that thing inside me, the real reason why I took up Education, burning.

God, please light the fire and keep it ablaze.

Of chopsticks and waterguns and flour

My 3-Hera students and I had just parted from our classroom Christmas party just a few Internet hours ago. The event was something where I was more of an observer than a participant.

"Iligtas si Anne" and other parlor games
In the morning, they had treasure hunting and "Iligtas si Anne" (their version of "The Boat is Sinking". I joined one group and as the "lola" of the family, had to suffer rolling on the floor and being stepped on, sat on, in short, crushed to the bone. I had never ever played the game "The boat is Sinking" in my life. Not when I was in kinder, nor in elementary. Not even in high school when the idea of sitting on or lying on or simply holding onto a member of the opposite sex sounded exciting. Not even in college with all the leadership seminars I have attended.

After being stampeded upon by four to five students at different level of the "Iligtas"game, how much different do you think did I feel compared to beef tapa? (See picture. Can't see me? That's because I'm crushed underneath Raqueline, the tallest student in my class.)

Surely, if it was you, you could have eaten a whole cow afterwards. But say, you were indeed given a heavy table-ful of menudo and lechon manok and estofado and get-as-much-as-you-want rice, how would you further feel if you were handed chopsticks instead of spoon and fork?? Chopsticks! Imagine!

"Balut" the improv show
And then, some had their group presentations, too. The "Balut!" improv show seems to be the trend right now. Some of my grad school classmates also performed that in our Camping last semester. Hmmmnn... I wonder who turned this into an "uso"? Later on, if this kind of show continues, we could probably put it up on the same shelf as the "Luwa" --a genre of literature and drama that has no known author and was passed on through word of mouth.

"Espe-espe"
Well, anyway, after everybody felt somewhat restless again, we had the "exchange gifts" portion of the party. It was fun. I gave my SP (Sarah Mae Higgins) a bookmark and a book and an Artwork shirt, that-- to her utter disbelief, was exactly her size. Disbelief, because Sarah was the kind of girl whose entire wardrobe is composed of loose ("hal-hal") jeans, oversized Tshirts, and sneakers and slippers. Nothing pink unless it is an org or class shirt -meaning, required. I made her change into it after they all got wet and dirty with the flour-throwing game of tongue twisters, which to her felt like some kind of punishment, especially after I threatened that I'll make sure to see her out of the school gate still wearing the shirt. So funny! She keeps on whining, "Ma'am? Islan ko na Ma'am..." Hahahaha! Haay, Sarah ka!

"Clean-up time, anyone?"
Clean-up time always makes me feel alternately like a skipping MP3 player on mute and Sir Jamili, the teacher in charge of the CAT. Everytime I would yell, "Pang-limpyo na," it seems as if I have yelled it repeatedly for dozens of times, and it seems as if everybody was doing everything except what you ask them to do. The only time they would actually remember to hear me and follow my instructions is when I would switch on my Jamili mode and resort to a decibel-higher voice and open threats including "Itext ko si Nanay mo!" and the all-timer "Minus ten! Minus five!"

Haay... What if these kids are really my kids? God, I couldn't actually fathom what life would be like.

Filled, but not yet to the brim

I've managed to fill my day.

I met my students from the only class I have today and I'm happy to report that they did not succeed in jumping on me with their brown rubber iguana. HAHAHA!

I met and tortured, I mean tutored Kim, Kring's second-grade little brother, after lunch for his Reading and Language periodical exams, and we enjoyed lots of snacks. Tita even brought Mc snacks later in the afternoon. I'm such a sucker for food. Gawd!

And at five, Jackie, my co-adviser and I met with the II-Amorsolo parents (only nine of 23, I'm disappointed to say) and we discussed some matters. It's sad that we only managed to resolve half of what we planned on accomplishing. I hope that eventually everything will be settled soon.

And so far, that's it. We also got our delayed salary today, and we all were upset to learn of the increase in our witholding taxes. I'm not really familiar with all these tax talk, but I do hope that this raise in the witholding tax would eventually be for the good of all the Filipinos, and of our nation as well. Haay...

Restaging a show put on by a formerly abhored artist, and loving every second of it

Who'd have thought that after ten years, I would be back where I've started?

It's just funny that this time I'm on the opposite side of the teacher's table, and honestly, I am still stunned that I found myself once again on this place that has made me into, well, me.

It's been only a mere three months since I've started teaching in INHS- School for the Arts, and believe it or not, I've managed, in a couple of occassions, to do what Sir Rex had done several times during our high school stay in this crazyhouse --yank open each locker door and throw out messy/wet/smelly tshirts and leotards and undershirts, and dirty socks and sneakers from Girbaud to Chucks, and Algebra workbooks, and unwashed lunchboxes (which shouldn't have been in there, in the first place) in a perfect 180 degrees trajectory out the door!

May my students forgive me but yes, I simply couldn't help it. Perhaps it came from impulse, that ugly little red nerve threatening to burst inside my brain that twenty four kids managed to switch on just by being very messy, very irresponsible, very snotty, very foul-mouthed, and ugly-mannered, and very everything!

But then perhaps it also came from wanting to try to do that very thing-- what seemed to my 14 (or was it 15?) -year old mind as an act that was full of flair, full of extravagance, a memorable finale to an impulsive reaction from an abhored yet idolized teacher of Biology. And so perhaps I simply wanted an encore performance, starring myself.

Thank you, Sir Rex for inspiring me to break plastic garbage cans by throwing them in the middle of the room for the sad reason of being unemptied, and to experience the sheer thrill of letting an Algebra workbook fly!