There's this new attraction in Adamson University where you can find a falcon inside a cage just in front of the Garden Cafe. Wanting to see a living image of our university mascot, I, Donna, Jay-Ar and Richmond decided to check it out.
*I approached the bird first trying to make it fly towards me*
Me: *whistles, bird did not move* Ayaw lumapit. Pa'no ba sound ng falcon?
Donna: Weet-weet!
Me: *bird still not moving* 'Di pa rin eh! Pa'no ba?
Biological Science class - While sitting outside the room waiting for our professor to let us in and take the quiz, Richmond asked me to review him from our lectures. I tried to give him tricky but easy questions.
Me: O, sige. Anong kingdom ang... lamok! (correct answer: animalia)
Richmond: *with all the confidence in his voice* INSECT!
Believe me, he was not joking with all those crazy punchlines. It's just that sometimes, whenever he needs to give an urgent answer, he would blurt out whatever things he has in mind.
I just wonder what he would do if he was given a time-limited test. Hehe!
Ever since my first year in college, we are trained to formulate lesson plans, which is very essential in teaching. We are trained how to make effective motivations, how to present our topics in a good way, how to do evaluation, how to choose measurable verbs for the teaching objectives, etc. I remember the first time we are asked to make lesson plans, nobody perfected it for the first try. I myself made three plans before it was approved for a teaching demo. But now after two years, I can say that I quite mastered in making lesson plans. I think I’m better than the rest of my classmates. Teehee!
Last Sunday I went to church (which I rarely do) for the afternoon mass and took a misalette (the printed material which somewhat shows how the mass will take place) that they distribute before the mass starts. I scanned the misalette and noticed that it is very similar to the lesson plans I’m very much familiar to. It has all the elements of a lesson plan.
In the classroom setting, the teacher doesn’t start teaching the topic at the very beginning of the lesson. He should catch the students’ attention and interest first by making a good motivation. The motivation could be games, songs, motivating questions, very short stories or poems, slideshows, etc. Of course, the motivation should be relevant to the topic.
After the motivation, the teacher should present or introduce his topic by connecting the motivation to what he will be teaching. The presentation is usually questions asking the students’ insights from the previous activity (motivation).
After the presentation is the lesson proper, where the topic is taught, the generalization, where the topic is summarized, and the evaluation where the students are tested and practiced for what they have understood.
All of these elements I have found in the misallete. The mass starts with introductory message, entrance hymns and prayers. After that we get to read the First and Second Readings. All of these things are very much similar to the class’ motivations; the students are asked to greet, sing, pray and read short stories.
The presentation is also very much the same as the mass’ “Alleluia” (it can be found after the second reading). The Alleluia states the very core of what was read in the First and Second readings parallel to how the presentation makes the students think of what they have learned in the motivation.
Following the Alleluia is the Gospel and the Homily. This serves as the mass’ very own lesson proper. The churchgoers read the Gospel which is the main topic of the mass and the priest further explains the topic through his Homily.
The rest of the mass are lots of prayers, the offertory and communion, and the concluding rite and dismissal. These are all identical to the class’ evaluation where the students practice what they learn; the people’s prayers are based from the Gospel, and the people offer gifts to God and accept the communion to live out what the Gospel taught them.
If the misalette is parallel to the lesson plan, then obviously the class is parallel to the Church (not just the structure but the whole community of Christians). We are the students in this class who are taught of the valuable lessons being taught by someone whom we consider as our headmaster who died two thousand years ago and inspired billions of people throughout the world. We belong in this class where there are no grade or year levels, where anyone of any age is enrolled as long as he is baptized. We are enrolled in this class, the most extraordinary class where we are classmates with our own family and loved ones. We study in the biggest classrooms in the world, situated in all parts of the planet.
In all of our years in our lives, we studied in this classroom. We will only graduate from this class when we die. And what do we gain from studying for so long? We get the most precious diploma in the world, to be with our Creator and experience everlasting happiness.
It has been over a month since I started making my first post on this blog and I didn’t have much progress, this is just my second post! I was not able to write posts because of the hectic schedule in school. Damn, I never thought summer classes would be this difficult! All those three subjects I enrolled drained my brains off!
Summer classes start from Tuesday to Friday, spending our whole six weeks which we should be spending on beaches, travels, or in the comforts of our home. But instead, we dig our noses in our notes, listen to boring lectures, and watch films we’re not even interested to watch for two and a half hours per subject. The complete names of the subjects are Introduction to Stylistics, Teaching of Literature, and Politics and Governance.
We start our classes at 7 in the morning. And the perfect way to ruin our mornings? Stylistics.
According to Wikipedia, stylistics is the study of varieties of language whose properties position that language in context. That’s what our professor also taught us. To put it simply, we studied language based on its meaning, on what it’s trying to tell. But we really didn’t give a damn on its definition. All we understood is that we have to analyze poems. Dissect poems. Interpret poems. Lots of poems. SWARMS of poems. ee cummings’ poems. And other ee cummings-ish poems. Out-of-this world poems. Poems-that-will-make-you-want-to-kill-yourself-when-you-read-them poems.
Take a look at this:
Me up at does
out of the floor
quietly Stare
a poisoned mouse
still who alive
is asking What
have i done that
You wouldn't have
And how about this:
r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
PPEGORHRASS
eringint(o-
aThe):l
eA
!p:
S a
(r
rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs)
to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;
Cool, huh? Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t hate these poems. I really love poems like these. Mind-boggling and artistic at the same time. But these poems made me hate my professor…
I hate her… No, I don’t hate her… I honestly admire her as a teacher; young, knows how and what to teach, makes sure her students understand her lessons… But I hate her mind… I hate how her mind came up with all those ideas! It’s just that our interpretations never meet. She always thinks that her interpretations are the right ones. It’s like “No, that’s not how I see it so you’ll get zero for that.” Lame. We spent all night typing and thinking of meanings, I even consulted genius poet friends for their interpretations, and she wouldn’t even care to examine if our answers were right. As a result, some of us failed; the rest of us NEARLY failed (but it’s okay since she provided us easier make-up exams so that we can catch up).
No one should ever expect that one person’s interpretation would match others. I hope she’ll realize that. She’s the one who told us that every interpretation is different from another. She should have at least gave good grades to those who showed their original ideas, to those whose ideas have proofs and bases, and to those who spent sleepless nights figuring the hell those poems supposed to mean.
I’m still happy though, because I passed that subject. I think I had the second highest grade for that. Hehe! I feel like I was one of her favorites, mainly because I was the only one who had the guts to argue with her and defend my ideas. Yep, I’m cool. B)
30-minute break. Next subject: Teaching of Literature.
This was the subject that I really felt like I was going to flunk…
Basically, this subject teaches us how to teach. We already had subjects like this; Teaching of Speaking, Teaching of Listening and Reading… and now Literature. We study different forms of literature and how to effectively teach these literary pieces.
Our professor is also young and he dresses so fly… so fashionista. He’s gay. But we don’t mind. He’s a smart homo. We learned a lot from him.
What made me think I was going to fail this subject was because of the group works. After every lesson, he tells us to group ourselves into three and pass a piece of paper with our names in it. The last group to pass will be the first group to perform. And what will we perform? Impromptu demo teaching, impromptu book reports, play presentations. So the first group to perform is the most likely to be unprepared. And guess who that group always was? Us.
And what could I do? I think I have the longest surname in the class, T-O-R-D-E-C-I-L-L-A-S, a staggering ELEVEN letters! So by the time we finished writing our names on the paper, all the other groups already passed theirs. This went on for like three times.
So my group mates and I came up with a plan. We were sick of always being first so we thought of preparing a pad with our names in it so that in our final exam (which is a play), we would be the last.
The day of our play came, and we had the most devilish smiles than anyone in the class. At last, we would taste the feeling of being last. The professor called for the papers so we searched for ours… It was not with me, nor in my bag or notes. It was not with my other group mate either. It was not with the other too. We went in panic searching for that cursed piece of ass wipe. We found nothing. So we had no other choice but to perform first.
Luckily, we came prepared for our play. I would say we had the best play than most of the class. The play saved the day. Our day.
And after that, while slumped to my seat, I noticed something under my shoe. I looked and then I saw our beloved piece of paper, stuck under my shoe by a gum I just chewed. My group mates saw it and we just broke into laughter, relieved that the hell was over. Lesson learned: never chew gum before a performance. XD
30-minute lunch break. Next subject: Politics and Governance.
I never liked politics ever since. I know people should have someone to lead them, but somehow I feel like leaders, or those who want to be leaders, just want the spotlight on their faces; they just want the attention and power. That’s how I think. I dunno. Whenever I see someone running for elections in the student government, I start to dislike that person. Maybe because I know he’s not capable. Maybe because I know that he knows he’s not capable but still insists on running just to be popular. Maybe because I know I’m more capable than him and lots of others are more capable than him. Maybe because I’m just the type of guy who doesn’t want to be led on. I don’t want someone to lead me. I want someone to inspire me. I hate politics.
I wanted to understand politics, so I thought enrolling this subject would make me interested in it. But no, my interest remained as dull as it was. It was the most boring subject in my summer classes.
But it was my favorite. Our professor is a partly-senile old fart who spends 10 minutes of our time on discussing the lesson and 50 minutes on discussing his personal life: his niece becoming the bar topnotcher, his plans on running for councilor in Masbate on 2010, his life as a seminarian, and other sorts of things.
The 50 minute part was my favorite part. This was the time that I’m able to get to sleep a lot. Believe me, half of the class do this. We seemed to listen to his stories on the first week of the class. But the following weeks, he still kept on telling those stories. We were like children told of bedtime stories, lulling us to sleep. And it really lulled us to sleep, everyday. I loved that part.
What I also loved about this professor was that he was so easy to be fooled. He easily forgets what he gave us for exam. Like when we are taking our final exams and someone someone would ask, “Sir, what is jus sanguini again?” He would gladly answer it aloud, completely forgetting that it was the question for the essay part in our exam! He’s 60 years old. I personally believe he needs to retire from work now.
We spend 10 minutes on relevant matter, 50 minutes on irrelevant, and the remaining 1 and a half hour we spend outside the classroom; he dismisses so early. This is the class’ favorite part. Whenever he says, “Dismiss na tayo,” every sleeping body in the room would automatically rise altogether like zombies then step out of the classroom.
Another good thing, he never gives failing grades. Leave an exam half-answered, and you would still get a very high grade. Every student’s heaven.
At last, now I’m enjoying my vacation; watching DVDs, reading books, surfing the net. I kept on thinking that that summer was a torture to me, but now I realized that I’m still lucky to have at least a 3 week vacation from school because when I graduate and have a job, there would be no more summer vacations for me, only holidays, company outings, and sick leaves.
At last, I have made a blog, a decent blog, unlike all those crappy blogs I have made in Friendster and Multiply, which are just mainly composed of excerpts of poems or stories made by my online buddies or passed on to me through mail by friends and relatives.
These past few weeks, everywhere I look and go, my mind has been bugged and poked by some things which persuade me to make a blog. And these are some of the reasons why I decided to make one:
1. My brain can no longer bear keeping all these thoughts and ideas! I know I’m not physically active, but my mind is as active as a rabbit in heat!
There are lots of ideas spinning inside of my head which I want to tell to others, to write as an essay or to post as a blog entry… Well, they are just opposed by my usual alibi “Tinatamad ako.” XD
Excessive thinking is one of the effects of stimulants on me. Coffee doesn’t just keep me awake, but also make me think… A LOT.
Yesterday, I sneaked up (because I’m still not allowed) to drink a mug coffee at 6pm. And by 2am, my eyes are still wide open since my mind keeps on thinking and thinking about random stuff. As another effect of coffee, my body also got hyperactive (while lying in bed!) so my waist just automatically rolls from left to right and right to left repeatedly in the middle of the night. My body’s rolling while my mind is thinking.
By 3am, I finally and successfully fell into slumber. At 5 in the morning, I woke up; I arrived at school before 7; and I ended up looking like a zombie on my first day of the Summer Semester.
2. I live in a family of bloggers! All my siblings are… and now my mom… and even my 3rd grader nephew!
My sister owns four blogs. My mom owns like three. And they are getting paid for all their blog posts… IN DOLLARS!
My other siblings own one or two blogs which function as their online personal journal. They prefer not making blogging as a career.
And my nephew… he’s 8 and he’s the best student among all the others in his grade level. He started blogging when he was 5 primarily because of the influence of his blogging mommy.
Last weekend, we just arrived at their house in Cainta from our vacation in NagaCity. After getting bored from playing his video games, he started to make a new blog post about his latest trip. Several minutes later, I checked up on what he was doing, and I was like, “O_O What the heck? This could be a work of a high school student!”
Now, I believe that those milk brands they advertise on TV nowadays can REALLY mutate a kid’s brain. They make children superhumanly smart! So don’t feed your babies those milk! XD
3. I need money… :( I see blogging as one way to earn money. Now that it’s summer, there are no students needing our tutorials, that means I will have no income. And even though I wanted to go for summer jobs, I still can’t because I have summer classes from 7am to 4pm. So I hope this poverty-stricken, materialistic, scorpion-snake will get a penny out of his blogs.
4. I need to. I took up Bachelor of Secondary Education as my course in college. And my major… English. Blogging in English would definitely help me for my future profession. This will serve as a training for me because I'm sure there will come a day that I need to teach my students how to write essays or how to make blogs. Who knows, maybe in the future online journalism will be included in the English curriculum.
So if ever you see grammar lapses on my posts, kindly tell me and I would feel obliged to change whatever unintended flaws I wrote.
I just wish I’ll make this blog as I had it planned: blog posts all made by myself, reflecting what I think of and what my whole day was like, explaining things I know to people asking explanations, showing things to people from a point of view of a simple teenager, and connecting to the psyche of all the readers how my clock ticks.
There's this new attraction in Adamson University where you can find a falcon inside a cage just in front of the Garden Cafe. Wanting to see a living image of our university mascot, I, Donna, Jay-Ar and Richmond decided to check it out.
