Ms. Dainty

I'm still young

2025 – 2012 = 13 + 20 = 33

What the hell are these numbers? Basically, that is a computation on what the Earth would be like when I reached 33 years old. It’s because according to science experts, by the year 2025 there would have worldwide scarcity on water and even bald forestation.

Moreover, by the time my contemporaries and I reached 2030 (which means we’re 38 years old by then) there is a high possibility of low supply of fossil fuels, a kind of energy used by the country for electricity demands.  We recently experienced a one-day Metro Manila blackout because of a typhoon and it totally freaked the people out: no laptop, no internet connection, no television, no air condition. Nothing.  What more after 18 years?

These are facts according to a six-month research of GMA 7’s documentary, ‘Oras Na’ hosted by Richard Gutierrez.

I have a wide imagination that the docu scared the heck out of me, I am still relatively young (33 years old) by the time the Earth has reached its limit. Thirty three years of existence? I could still imagine myself having a career and building my own family. Oh my God! By the time I have my own children, they would not see the beauty of the world anymore.

Everyone has deadlines to beat and meet that people overlook the Earth’s own cut-off date.  I hope it’s not too late to beat the world’s ‘deadtime’.

P.S. Documentaries like Oras Na are so illuminating and scary-in-a-good-way that it ought to be televised earlier so that more can watch!!!

Everything shall perish under the sun…

*photo grabbed from google

"i am a responsible girl"

"Keep thyself chaste." - 1 Tim 5:22

+ My kisses are worth more than a party or a movie.

+ My body is the temple of God - not a plaything.

+ The "first" NO may be difficult - after that it's easy.

+ Virginity is still a virtue; lust is still a capital sin.

+ The way I dress, act and speak may be a temptation to my boyfriend. I will observe modesty for his and my own protection.

+ My parents have done so much for me I wish alsways to be a credit to them.

+ My boyfriend will be a husband and father some day. He must be a hero in the eyes of his wife and children. I will do nothing to prevent that on my visits with him.

+ I want to be a wife and mother. I will reserve my purity and affection for my husband and children.

+ If through my weakness, I should get pregnant, I will not take "the easy way out" by killing my unborn child.

don't want to graduate, yet

It’s the time of the year when professors keep on pressing the issue of what do we, senior and graduating students, want to pursue in life before our college days expired.

What do I want?

Right away, I would usually answer that I wanted to be a journalist. Now, I’m having doubts if I wanted to become a full-time newspaper woman.

Suddenly, different branches related to my course, have sprung up luring me away from my first love. We had our Broadcasting subject last semester that I really enjoyed, I didn’t know that I would like working in the production line. In fact, I missed working our asses off in producing our weekly news programs.

Furthermore, we also have  Business and PR writing this semester that I thought I could give a shot after graduation. Why not do more lucrative jobs than writing in print media, right? Who wouldn’t want to earn money? HAHA.

Working in magazine (fashion and travel) is another option I’m thinking.

My goodness, if only I could land a job simultaneously on all of my options! 

fate

Call me loser or anything, but I just had finished watching 500 Days of Summer a while ago. I thought it was beautiful. Okay, ‘beautiful’ is such a blah word, but for the lack of better adjective let’s leave it that way.

My friends said that it wasn’t that good, that the movie was very indie-ish, but on the contrary if I were to rate it, I would give the storyline a perfect score.

500 Days of Summer is not a love story we’re all used to, rather it’s a coming-of-age anecdote on how one comes into perspective about a very profound subject-- love.

Tom, the protagonist, thought all along that Summer, his love interest, was her destiny that until they broke up he would not admit that they were really not just meant for each other.

I liked how the movie ended, when Tom somehow, has come full circle. He met a would-be lover, Autumn (yeah, what a cliché.)

It just goes to show that sometimes, we overlooked some things in front of us, those that are more important, because we keep on chasing on what we thought was that something we’re looking for.  (Did I explain myself clearly? Whatever. LOL.)

Tom: “I’ve never seen you before.”

Autumn: “Maybe you weren’t looking.”

***

On the other news, it’s only less than 10 weeks before my graduation. Oh my goodness!

as usual

What's new? Nothing's new.

Today's the first day of my last semester in college. I do know that professors hardly show up during the first week heck i still wake up early to be on time for my only class. I don't actually care if they don't meet us, it's the last semester for my college days anyway so I might as well show up in class and catch up with friends.

***

Just in case you're interested, I bought two new sheer tops. Hihi. 

origami-inspired peter pan collar

prints are too small but they are holding-hand kids

students, read on:

Here's a must-read article from Inquirer. Students, read on:

THREE YEARS into the university, I have found myself slipping into that black hole of being a slave to my grades a couple of times. When your professor tells you to forget about the grade you’ll get, that is a breath of fresh air. It reminds me of the student I sometimes fail to be.

We were having a class discussion about whether the formal mode of instruction is outdated for the learning style of our generation—the kids who grew up with the power to do homework, research and learn something (although perhaps superficially) all at their fingertips. When the class was asked what kind of education we wanted to receive, I pointed out that I wanted an education operating the way it should: with students attending a class hungry to learn and acquire the skills needed to make them competent contributors to their own chosen fields, rather than entering a classroom every single day with the ultimate goal of pleasing the teacher and meeting the minimum requirements to pass the course. Our professor’s reply was:

“If I could use a time machine, I would go back to the time when the grading system was invented and I would destroy it. Because of its invention, teaching ceased to be a calling and became a profession. I can only imagine the amount of potential we kill every time teachers give a student a grade of 5. A grade is but a number. Never let anyone judge you by a number, much less yourself. The day you start caring about your grades is the day you stop learning. A card of excellence is just a piece of paper. It will rot. But the knowledge you get because you wanted to learn—that’s yours forever, or you could pass it on.”

It would be hypocritical of me to wash hands and say I did not fall for the system. Of course I did and I probably still do on certain occasions. And what is even sadder is that I am not the only one who does. Most of us are guilty of it. At the end of the day, we all emerge with passing marks but when we look back, we remember not even a tinge of enjoyment because we were all too preoccupied with trying to pass the course.

Before I went college, recognition day was to me among the most important in the academic calendar. I looked at it as a time for me to shine. It made me feel admired and important.

When I was new in college, I would patiently join the line of students outside every department waiting for a chance to claim our class cards at the end of every semester. Back then, it felt really good to tell your parents you had aced your subjects.

Several semesters later, however, I would hear my mom complaining about not seeing my class cards anymore. It started when I was getting my class card for a subject which I really liked. I was already third in line in front of the department assistant releasing the class cards when I felt like it did not matter to me anymore. I did not see the need to shine and feel important like before. I turned around and went back. The subject exceeded my expectations and I loved it not because it gave me a chance to get a grade of 1, I loved it because I loved it. I was satisfied, and like pearls to milk tea, grades are just an add-on.

I know some students who get better grades than me. Ironically, they sometimes sound more jaded than me and some complain about studying. When I hear them ranting, I almost always fall silent and brood over whether I am being just like everybody else, enslaved by a scale of 1 to 5. I sometimes do.

When times get really tough and I have to fulfill what I think people believe to be my role, I have this feeling to just get it over with. When I recall those times, I would regret depriving myself the feeling of being in that moment. I hate looking back and seeing my tired self, even if such a moment was a milestone because I did something new, something right or something different. If I throw my worries out of the box, there’s more space for excitement. So I have decided to keep it simple and to live learning.

Our professor explained it this way:

“It is not about whether our mode of teaching is outdated or not. It is about what learning means to this generation now. (For example,) many students do not enjoy mathematics because fear of failure preempts the experience. They fear math either because they are already afraid of the teacher giving them a 5  and/or because people say math is difficult. It is sad. Most students are defeated even before the first lesson.”

He was right. The reason I said it was the education I want to have is that I feel most students are falling for this system. Today, most students try to find out what a teacher is like, what the teacher’s class requirements are and what they need to do  in order to get a passing mark, instead of trying to determine what is there to be learned and giving it all their effort. Students who fancy a little euphemism call it being pragmatic, but I think it defeats the essence of learning. Most children get tired of going to school because every single day is just another day of trying to avoid failing. They learn their lessons superficially—only just enough to get them to the next level—but they don’t know them well. It is like building a city of skyscrapers—made of wood.

My grade school or high school self would have been devastated not to see excellent marks on my report card. My college self, however, will look at the grades on my class card, whatever they may be, with contentment. They may not always be high, but I’m happy to say I learned and I enjoyed doing something at my own pace because that is where I am at my best. I do not want to learn at the expense of my own enjoyment, being too busy trying to achieve and to be something people think I should be.

A few years back, I thought that it was my grades that got me all the respect and affection I was getting,  that it was my grades that became my ticket to the university and the basis for all the scholarship grants that I received. Now I say it was not my grades, but it was me. It was my effort. It was my liking for what I do. Grades gauge some things, but they are not everything. They cannot speak for what goes beyond them. There is so much more to learning than getting a grade of 1.

****

I would be a liar if I said I did not care at all with my grades. But true enough, learning stops when students get too  grade-conscious. I found the professor's point of view true and plausible: destroy grading system because it degrades the intention of pure learning. 

There were moments when I got grades that I felt I don't deserve yet what mattered most was that at the end of the day I learned something. Bow.

Grades are just numbers; they do not reflect our whole being.     

small step

'Cool' was the first word I uttered after discerning that my hometown and the whole Laguna have been implementing a plastic-free regulation.

We went in the supermarket and it was cool to actually carry paper bags, just like in the States. 

Another thing, San Pablo City (my hometown) is implementing an organized waste-disposal scheme. At least in our village, the ‘garbage-men’ would not accept trashes unless they are segregated into biodegradable and non-biodegradable.  Cool, yes?

How I wish that the nation would soon adopt the same environment-friendly plans. It’s not yet late to save Mother Earth.

In other news, the world has recently reached its 7^th billion population mark. Studies say that the earth could suffice to hold the population just as long as its natural resources are not injured.

Ergo, this is a call for the human race. Hello world! 

*photo from just jared*