Teachers [Post World Teacher's Day]

Michelle Pfiefer on Dangerous Minds

[I couldn’t post this on the appropriate date because blogging about the typhoons were best for those times]

No matter how you hate them, when you’re out in the real world setting your own life, there’s this attachment feeling to the lessons learned from teachers.

If in our past lives as students or recent, we’ve had all the difficulty we could imagine from teachers who’ve given us the world to carry on our shoulders—let us be thankful. Somehow, the weight they gave us is most likely tolerable now. We’re able to carry our own new worldly baggage because we’ve developed foundations from our teachers.

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For schoolkids, parents often have this arising envy for teachers. Why? In their development phase in life, they are quite attracted to teachers who give lessons and insights of how they see the world they do not know of yet. So when they get home, instead of hearing “I love my mommy and daddy”, they grow out of it and say “You know what the teacher said?”…

At this stage teachers also teach kids, unknowingly to parents, how to show ways of giving your parents the love and attention they need to. In some parts of the school year, the teacher improvises activities like making poetry, essays, reading books, drawing, singing, memorizing multiplication tables and more. When kids get home, even though they say to parents that their teacher is the best, they really are…because they’re doing their best to teach children how to make their parents proud.

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High School seems to be a very great adversity for teachers. Kids develop angst and attitude. But notwithstanding all the difficulty, teachers at this point in time are well remembered.

I miss my Physics teacher, English teacher, PE teacher and H.E./Basic Architecture teacher. They were the teachers who made so much impact on me. They had biting words. But they were ideal teachers—maintaining professionalism and service at all times.

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College is quite diverse. There are so many teachers. You cannot easily spot the best teacher but you can rarely spot the worst too. But I had a few of those worst ones…

And what they were like gave me a lesson in life— never to follow them. Their teaching is  a reminder to the others and to students who’ll unexpectedly be teachers in the future.

Good teachers in college are fun and their presence is almost short-lived. Fun because they’re giving students the feeling of “I’m ready to blast you off to your future”. You’re almost there, so they’re making it hyped up. So they teach you realism and idealism, how it is confusing, and of course what is in the books and the issues. And you know, that is just a facade. They’re doing so much in the unseen eye. [Using “you” because I’m through with it]

Although it’s not really quite like that… I know we hate 70% of college life because (it just sucks) of thesis, exams, projects, long homeworks all piled up. At the end of it all, it makes us who we are: INSOMNIACS, PARANOID, DELUSIONAL, SOCIAL SUICIDES, UNDER-NOURISHED, LOVELESS [hahaha]

By graduation, you can tap a shoulder from your teachers, look at each other, and then sigh for a long time.

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My mom is a college professor. Every time she comes home from work, I feel guilty for being unfocused sometimes back in school. She tells me of her hard days at work and I laugh at cheating, cramming, PDA’s, riots, truants, failing marks, and more because I’ve been there and I’ve done that. It is a good thing though that she was never my professor. I would have been stiff and miss out a lot in life because of being such a good girl. But she teaches me, “You need to learn how to be evil too so I didn’t work to where you were schooling at and I think you feel the same way.”

But I wasn’t really evil, I was taught well by my favorite teachers in the past. I am passionate about the things I am learning and that matters.

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HAPPY WORLD TEACHER’S DAY, OCT. 5.

P.S. Of course, not everything is as goody goody as what is written here. But let’s just acknowledge teachers.

Defense mechanism

I think everybody is familiar with defense mechanisms. The idea of it is like this when a certain agitated feeling comes up it’s either you put up a strong guard or a strong mechanism or you put yourself at the most vulnerable point.

There are people who easily see through others who act on their defense mechanisms like most of our parents. They know something is up with us at some certain points in life but they keep it to themselves and indirectly help us move through it. And that’s getting way beyond my point…I just felt like making a metaphor haha.

Last night, after quite a loooong time (say 2 weeks?), I turned on the TV to watch the news. As expected, all the news was about the recent catastrophes. What I didn’t expect was that I became scared shitless and paranoid.

Who isnt? Well probably there are those who aren’t like in some unaffected parts of the Philippines. But sooner they will be too.

I kept thinking about what we are all going through. Luzon seems to be in a very tough condition and with the coming unpredictable storms, recovery will be slower. When Metro Manila was steadily working out its recovery from Ondoy, our brothers and sisters from the other Luzon regions were badly devastated by Pepeng. What a twosome. We’re a waterworld.

I was also thinking of those who’re getting loans from government agencies and how tiresome it is (especially when they’ve claimed it and then the next problem would be how to pay it).

Another thought was Laguna De Bay which is a great water area, here, down south. The government proposal on putting up a sort of appendage from the lake to the Manila Bay through Paranaque seemed to be a good idea. But that seems impossible because of the geography of Paranaque and a back-flow from Manila Bay is possible.

My thoughts were endless while watching what was on TV. I was so distracted from studying.

The news is horrifying. Especially when newscaster, Ted Failon would go “Dalawang bata sa Benguet–PATAY!” It gives off this horrifying feeling that death will come sooner than expected in our conditions now.

The idea of being a misplaced person because of the recent deluge is heart-aching– having put up your life in a home for years only to be shattered at an instant. Now, you’re in ULTRA or any evacuation center with thousands of other misplaced people. That feeling…gah. No matter how many you are huddled together in evacuation centers, it still would feel lonely–misplaced.

While the News beat reporter was showing parts of the still flooded Pasig area. my mom asked me a question with a very obvious answer (while playing RC): “May baha pa rin? How come?”

I answered, “Syempre, pano matatanggal yan kung clogged yung drainage sytem, the garbage that was accumulated during the flood is like super.”

Mom: “Yan kasi, dapat papel nalang ginagamit.”

Me: “Mom, when you use paper you’ll lose trees.”

Mom: “Eh bakit ang plastic san ba galing?”

Me: “Sa trees din? But the thought of cutting them–landslide?”

Mom: “Sabagay. I think they should find a good solution for recent problems and make plans for the future.”

I was thinking: When you cut trees, you can plant new ones but they take a lot of time to grow.

Then I said “I know a solution!”

Mom: “What?”

Me: “Two-child policy”

Mom: “You’re so close to the point, really. Verrrry close.”

Me: “I have a point you know. When you’ve got 2 kids, you’ll lessen consumerism–most of the non-biodegradable stuff. Therefore, lessening garbage and threats of nature.”

Mom: Whatever.

Me: “How about one child?”

You see, that’s defense mechanism. A VERY LONG ENTRY ABOUT IT.