Slipper people

I may not have the dog tag. But I am an advocate.

An advocacy is something you believe in. It is not a trend. And that’s why I hate people who make the ‘life and love’ of some to a mere joke.

When I went home to Sigma, I lost count of how many fake dog tags of my advocay group, "AKO Mismo" I encountered on the road. Even vendors wear them. So jittery that I asked one girl I just crossed-way with in a shopping mart at Roxas if she is also a fellow advocate. She just smiled as if hiding something.

No ‘Yes’, no ‘No’.

When I asked about how she is going to help, and what NGO sponsor did she want to work for if given a chance, she just bowed her head and left with the lame excuse of an appointment at a funeral parlor.

That’s what some of the Filipinos think. That everything is a trend. If you wear boots, because you think it’s too sunny for your legs, some will think it is a trend. If you change your hairstyle with ‘bangs’ because you are hiding your harry-potter-like scar in your forehead, they will think it’s a trend. If you want to be unique, your neighbor will think it is a trend.

Uniqueness is somewhat misshapen and misunderstood by some people in our country and in our province.

I really do not know what the thing about Havaianas is. No pun intended on the brand but why all the fuss? It’s just a slipper brand. You say it’s from Brazil, so what? You can’t pay your project debts, you can’t even pay for photocopies of hand-outs and you have money to buy a pair of slippers worth a thousand pesos. That’s the bad trait of SOME Ilonggos. Some think it’s all about coolness, some think it’s all about being ‘IN’. Some thinks crap.

That’s why I have pledge myself that I will never buy that brand of slipper. It pointless. See I am already picturing the prospect of buying one, “How much?” “Where, SM?” God that is so stupid. Why the fuss. Why?

Why not spend those thousand pesos in a good book? In a portfolio investment? In a worthy donation for the less fortunate? In a school project? On alleviating your own hunger? (I know one girl who does not eat just to save up for Havaianas).

Hey, why did the topic went from dog tags to Havaianas?

I don’t know, maybe because they are really closely associated. When you have an advocacy and when some people see it, they think its “cool” and they follow the suit, not minding the true meaning of advocacy.

An advocacy is living for what you think is right. Not for what you think is cool so stop it./KP

*Note, if you really like to, be an advocate not a wrong doing faker.

The power of a teacher slash professor slash power tripper

If you are superman and you enter a classroom, you are now transformed into a commoner; the thing you are most dreading of. And surprise, surprise, you cranky Jan Di (in the case of people like me who don't watch Boys Over Flowers, she's the girl protagonist) look a like teacher has now all your powers and is using it's extent to your sullen, unfortunate classmates. Bwahaha, she's laughing at the person nearest to her desk.

She has these glowing eyes. No, glowing hair because that's the first thing you only see. The next thing is that your attention moves from her hair to her very droopy eyes. That one stare from those pair of eyes, you, enough about her face, lets go to the wondrous way she teaches us.

She power trips, yes.

At one time (in a random instance) most of my female classmates were outside the room, some in the restroom, others doing errands of sorts, few were absent. Then she comes to the room and asks where they are, answering the truth that they went somewhere and shall return soon, she said, "That's not an excuse."

She marked them late and absent.

She did it because she had power. Power tripping. And when my classmates returned, she never said a thing about it. Talk about being unfair. The students should be able to explain fully well did they if she had asked yet she did not. She just power tripped. If ever she did mention what she has done to my classmates to the oppressed, they have the right to fully explain themselves and justify what should be done to them.

But it never happened, she just used her authority in a very, very, very (too much very is for emphasis) wrong manner./KP

I am.

I really do not know what I would feel or how I would react.

I just discovered that my uncle has been dead for five days now.

As an immediate member of his family, since he is my uncle, I should be crying hysterically or be in melancholia. But I am not. I am currently watching television and waiting for my phone to be fully charged. Sad? Not. Depressed? No. And I don't know why I feel this way. In fact, I am glad that he died.

Now don't give me that you-are-an-ungrateful-piece-of-gene look. You don't know half of him. I don't know half of him. But I will try to.

The only memory of my uncle that lingers in my head is his voice. His raspy, toneless, almost soundless voice. I remember that you have to force open your ear canal to make the mouth movements make sense. I remember that you have to hold your breath while listening up close to him because his breath smelled like nicotine. I remember his few teeth, sparsely spaced between his gum. I remember his gray hair unkempt and tousled, his ragged clothes. His children who sink in the dark whenever we come and visit. I remember their house, the creaky old hut that grandma wants to live into, I remember the hard pump they are using. The one that you need to sweat bullets to get a bucket of water. I remember him stooping across the yard to greet us when we visit. I remember him lending food and cigarettes from the nearby store. I remember him planting orchids. I remember him eating gruel. I remember his wrinkled face. I I remember him coughing, I remember him crying when grandma was dead. I remembered him looking devastated that his son committed a crime. I remember him.

He was suffering from cigarette addiction. Narcoticism if it was an ideology. He was a chain smoker. He'd rather smoke than eat. He'd rather smoke that clean his rickety house. He'd rather smoke that find a living. He'd rather smoke than fix his life.

And now that smoking succumbed what was needed to be fixed, he'd rather let go than fight. For a person who knows the effects of a life in smoke, I pity him. But as a relative, I agree that he had let go. At least for now, he can rest somewhere that does not sell cigarettes.

Standing on tiptoe for somebody else

Some would argue that the world is unfair.

For me, the world is not unfair; the people in this world are the ones who are.

Imagine yourself on your midterm exam week.

You woke up 7:35, your exam started at 7:30. You are late, you run, you panic, you forget to brush you teeth in order to catch and exam. You come inside the classroom, saying a hasty ‘good morning’ to the proctor and get the exam sheets from the table and sit at the nearest chair from where you are standing. You search for your bag (that is still full of notes from yesterday’s exam) for a ball point pen and could not find one. In your incessant attitude, you ask for a pen from your seatmate, she has no extra so you have no choice but to borrow one from the proctor.

As you move back to your seat, you see that the examination is semi-hard for your level of difficulty. You happily answer the exam and gladly finished it.

Imagine yourself the week after.

You are checking your test papers (which you shouldn’t because of the risk of tampering) when all of a sudden you see that other papers answered in a different manner, instead of writing letters, they wrote numbers. You read again the written instruction on the test paper; WRITE LETTERS TO CORRESPOND THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. Then your teacher announces that the correct procedure for answering that part of the test is by writing numbers as oriented and orally instructed before the exam.

You have that look of disbelief printed on your face. You wrote letters.

Then one of your classmates asks: “Ma’am kung nag answer sila bi it letters?”(What if they answered letters ma’am?)

That is surely your paper.

Then your professor would say: “Sala na. Wala sila ga pamati paghatag ko instructions pag exam kag.” (Mark it wrong, they were not listening when I gave the on-site instructions).

You argue and say, “Ma’am, amu man ni ang instruction sa papel, gin sunod lang namun.” (We just followed the instruction on the exam questionnaire, Ma’am). She then says: “Muna kay late kamo kag wala ga pamangkot.” (That’s what you get when you are late and not asking).

No, that did not happen to me, but unfortunately some of my classmates were victims of this scenario. Yes it did happen. And it is true.

If I were one of the victims of this scene, I would gladly put up my banner of rights in front of that professor. I was also standing on tiptoe when I heard the ‘verdict’ of the unappealing judge that day. That was totally unfair.

I was speaking out, what f they are late ma’am and they did not hear the instructions? What happens to them?

She ignores me completely.

I was infuriated myself that a very narrow thing hampered my classmates’ score. Quoting on one classmate, “Biskan diin mo pa ni nga korte dal-un, sala gid ni siya ang gin ubra nya ya.” (What she (the professor) did was wrong, no matter what court you go to).

Why do I think it’s unfair?

First, if you think of it logically, the students followed what was on the test questionnaire, they had followed instructions correctly in the examinations’ policy. As it is presumed that instruction is part of the test, it should be also presumed that what given instruction is printed on the questionnaire is THE instruction.

Second, as a proctor, you should clarify or re-iterate if there are corrections on the exam. This only not includes before the exam but for those who also did not hear it because they were delayed. It is the right of the student to know the changed instructions; the proctor should be responsible enough to tell them so. Late or not late, it is the job of the proctor to tell the students if there had been a change in the exam.

Third as a teacher, you should analyze the situation and not be as critically narrow in making decisions, porque na late sya sa exam mo, wala na dasun pag-asa? If the teacher-proctor detests people who are always late, then he/she should consider them as clients, they are the customers, kahit na late ay kailangan i-entertain o pag-ukulan ng pansin.Though some of them were poorly answering that part of the test, some are doing well, but did not follow her instructions.

Fourth, as the student-client type of relationship should be presumably known by institutions, the students should be part of the decision about the NFI’s (Not following instructions). The students, especially the NFI’s are obliged to defend themselves and reason out why their answers are like that. You say that instructions are part of the test right? However, just like what I had said, they did follow the printed instructions. Verbal, they did not. How could they follow it, if they did not hear it?

The people in this world are not fair./KP

*our proctor is in the person of our subject professor also.

The Le Cirque Incident

I almost dropped the paper when I read the headline, Arroyo dined for P1M in New York—report Critics: ‘Lavish’ meal in bad taste. It was so wrong. I was in a rush of reading the newspaper since I had not opened one since last week and to my horror, there was an article that shouldn’t be there.

Arroyo dined for P1M in New York—report Critics: ‘Lavish’ meal in bad taste. Great, just great.

This ‘dinner’ was also noted in a foreign publication. No, not just noted, it was first noted there. Mas nauna pa sila sa PDI. The president of our beloved country was spending money on good food for her and her constituents. Not for our hungry countrymen.

According to the article, the president did not initate the dinner but rather was invited. If I analyze the situation, It is still totally wrong. Why dine and spend (or even if you did not) money rather, splurge money, on food.

Madam president, you are an epitome of our country’s status. Most Filipinos could not eat three times a day. Bear with us please. We did not put you on the highest threshold to prove that leadership in our country is blatantly ignorant, we have placed you there to help alleviate our country’s status and not make it look impoverished.

I am not saying that you wear beggar clothing, heck I would not do it if it were me. What I am trying to say is that do not indulge if the people you are supposed to be serving are working and sleeping on empty stomachs.

Even if you were just invited, it is bad publicity and a demoralizing and degrading thing for us Filipinos living below society’s generalizing status.

And you stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria. God, that’s too much spending. Even for a president.

*here is a link for the article.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090809-219377/Arroyo-dined-for-P1M-in-New-Yorkreport

The color Yellow

I never liked the color yellow. It looks like daffodils and mushy things that get out of your body when you had too much milk. It was a sickly color.

Yet, a few decades ago, it was revered; it was hope.

It was more than the idea of hope. It was real hope in the person of Corazon Aquino.

She, along with her loser-like sign (which really means 'laban' or fight) and her yellow garb proved that democracy in our country is alive and is called upon by the people during times of trouble. She is the living proof of the power of the people. And now she has gone to rest.

She served well and did well for her fellow Filipinos. Plus her speeches were great.

Discovering the Writers of Freedom

I was flicking the remote of the television about ten last night when I saw this cut scene from movie at HBO.

I stopped badgering the remote control and I gazed at the 21” box who suddenly took away the spokes of sleepiness in me.

The movie was dubbed as “Freedom Writers”. It’s not pretty old, though it is my first time to hear about it. It was made 2007; but it made me awake for more than an hour. I had found our movie review.

It speaks of hope and patience. It is the common ground of the teaching force today. It is today’s classroom environment. Spread the word. We are Freedom Writers.

Search them on the internet. They are real and they are changing education./KP