Getting to know failure in different POV

My immunity against failure must have been upgraded to a newer and harder version as I felt I had acted stoically after witnessing my advisory class suffocate themselves with a thick air of depression last July 10, our department’s Acquaintance Party.

After weeks of rehearsing for the event’s dance competition, my AC found out they ranked 8th out of 12 contestants. The place made the girls huddle up and cry on each other’s shoulder, and the boys silent while their batchmates who won first and third places danced their winning combinations up on the stage. Even in the darkness of the dance floor, I could see their depression and stumped expectations blink like a disco ball.

It was disheartening to see them consciously isolating themselves from the crowd, but even my encouragements didn’t work. I showed this message I typed in my cellphone to some of the students: “Don’t act like losers”, prodded them to conquer the dance floor and enjoy the rest of the short night, but like a parent who advises a daughter not to have a boyfriend at 15, my words fell to deaf ears.

Rescuing me from my point of view as an adviser and teacher, Lynnie told me that it’s the first time for a fourth year section to land a spot below number three. She added that it’s uncommon for a lower year to beat a fourth year section. “I see,” I replied. My advisory class was Goliath to Davids of a second year section.

The girls asked me if their performance was horrible or “law-ay” in Hiligaynon; I answered yes, especially their first performance (they performed again when they found out the wrong CD was played). I could have lied and said that they’re awesome, but the artist in me wouldn’t. That’s the rule we have to live with: know the truth and improve. Some would disagree with it, but we, who were educated and polished under harsh words, rigorous trainings and “soulless” teachers, believe it works.

After 30 minutes, some of my students decided to go home, which for me was a good decision than to stay in the vicinity where victory and happiness ruled, which in return nursed the fresh, open wound of defeat and embarrassment. I wanted to stay with the rest of the class, but my co-teacher and neighbor told me that we should leave at 11. On my way out of the multi-purpose hall, I told my girls that I have to go because I still have classes the next day. Some of them nodded; others stared blankly at the spaces of the dance floor, probably reviewing the images of their performance in their minds.

Inside the jeepney, I couldn’t stop thinking about my AC. I don’t know if it was right for me to act as if everything was okay, only for them to translate it as a no-care attitude. I honestly don’t know what to say or what to act on that night. I was once a high school student and I too was placed in various situations that involved winning and losing, where it led me to cry, pout, and hate the world; but I could only remember those stages like simultaneous replays of a tv show: only images, no emotions.

I can only assure that one thing is for sure: my kids’ immune system against failure will strengthen in the years to come. And what they encountered last Friday was only the beginning.

Anyway, here are some of the pictures Jesyl, the class shutterbug, took during that fateful day.

4-Amethyst students were all smiles before the competition.


My favorite icon on that night - my student Roosevelt from 4-Sapphire - doing a Michael Jackson.


That's Jesyl and,um, me.

my hand hurts

My right hand hurts from all the checking I did this afternoon. To break the hypnotic process of checking my freshmen's seatwork, I had to feed my physical self some junk. And the truth is I want to blog things down - things that run back and forth inside my mind and keep on chasing me in my dreams. On the other hand, my body (especially my right hand) now aches to touch the comfy, cold sheets of my bed. This leaves me unable to do one of the things I love most - writing.

I have to brainwash myself that I am, in fact, always writing - from my daily lesson plans to visual aids. This is the only downside of my being a teacher - for now. I won't allow this to last long.

Humanda.

introducing talit-hi luna

I told my fourth year students to choose a pen name that they will use in our Effective Writing class. I believe it's only fitting that we use pseudonyms because we have to discuss the mistakes they made or will be making in writing their essays. In short, it will save them from humiliation.

As I wrote down the assignment, I remembered the recent pen name I made.

I decided to have a decent pen name after meeting Tatay Kidlat last year. I had to choose words that are meaningful to me.

After my trip to the Ayala Museum in late 2009 and viewed Juan Luna's paintings, I knew I have a "new" family name. After all, my father would always associate my crazy, extreme days with the changing of the moon. And oh, how I love the moon!

Before that, on the other hand, I thought of having "Ulan" for my first name. Rain, however, to me represents sadness and immobility. So, I chose "Talit-hi" because I like the way how raindrops would lightly fall on my face. They are like soft kisses and light taps of a lover.

I first used the name "Talit-hi Luna" in my 2008 Gawad Komisyon entry. After I won, I decided to stick with the pen name for eternity - like Tatay Kidlat (his real name's Eric de Guia) because I will need a part of me when I write my stories or when I create things. I need to summon Talit-hi Luna if all else fails. /mrAp

June is a hell-raiser

My fingers had been itching to blog things down, but the second and third weeks of June smothered me with one serious job, back-to-school concerns, pandemic threats, Frank wannabe’s, and Michael Jackson. My birth month is always a hell-raiser.

Once a teacher…
A week before my birthday, I received a text message from Ailes. He told me that their department (at our high school alma mater) was looking for a substitute teacher because one will be resigning. Though I had already a “fixed” decision to join a college friend and classmate in her online tutorial business for this year, I ended up doing a demonstration after my ever-hopeful parents’ prodding.

I can’t remember if I was happy or sad or heavy when the teachers informed me to observe classes that afternoon, which I translated mentally as “you’re hired”. I just knew it would make my parents and peers happy. And I knew I have to answer my favorite question, “Will this make me happy?”

The truth is I don’t have the answer – yet. Being a two-week-old baby teacher doesn’t mean anything – to me, to my superiors or to my students. During the first week, I had to change my sleeping habit, wear “decent” clothes (geez, I have to wear my usual white-shirt-shorts combo over the weekend), make the lesson plans in a jest, and look for good resources that will ease the academic burden of my students.

My first two weeks were not at all pink and rosy (Classes were suspended on my supposedly “first day” because of a school “flood”) I knew my preparations are still half-baked; my teaching style needs rigorous polishing; my freshmen students seemed to look for any vein of incompetence in my body as I sometimes mispronounced words that led them into looking at each other and throwing subtitles that say: OMG! And she’s a Speech & Drama teacher!

I also have a little difficulty in getting the interest of most seniors to get a little serious in their writing class, since it’s a “lesser” subject. Reminding them that they will need it in college doesn’t work. I honestly feel like a captain who leads an army without passion for war. Or is it because they think they are fighting the wrong battle? I have yet to find out.

Of masters and would-be masters
Finally, I’m back to school as a student and I love my Saturday classes.

I wonder, on the other hand, why they call this part of post-graduate studies “Master’s Degree”. The pilosopo in me thinks that even one finishes the said academic part, you can’t still be considered a “master” of your field. Well, this is just a thought I want to prove later.

Anyway, I love being a student again. It’s fun to be the one sitting on a chair and listening to expert professors in two hours or so. I’m looking forward to do researches at the Graduate School library and study traditional and modern concepts on Special Education. My inner storyteller is excited to know the stories of my seatmates and classmates.

I only hate one thing, and this pisses me off: annoying, “I”-specialists slash classmates. Hell-o???!

Finding Happiness
I have proven after many regular and irregular jobs that happiness is hard to measure and to define. Sometimes, it’s even a traitor that will suddenly stab you after all the bling and the bliss.

In this stage, I think I’ve learned how to screen the factors of happiness that are being laid down in front of me. Previously, I believe I would wolf down on a factor like a hungry child to a decent day’s meal. I now approach it casually yet seriously as I check all of its sides. I sound like a cautious individual checking out for any bone sticking out from the closet.

Missing Tatay Kid
If there’s one person I met last year that I now miss, it’s the father of Kapwa. I miss Tatay Kidlat and his family. I miss the talks on Sikolohiyang Pilipino. I miss us – the “Iloilo Chapter” – drinking wine with him over a repeated lecture on “sariling duwende.”

Ah, I miss Tatay terribly. I miss Arts and Culture. I miss my old self.

Death of a Childhood
“Life is like a vapor…”

My co-teacher and co-adviser chanted the line above when the news that the King of Pop is dead. I was a little sad about it but it was like the morning a year ago when I heard Heathe Ledger died (though I know Ledger’s no Jacko).

I’m not an ultimate Jacko fan, but his songs and Madonna’s remind me of my childhood. Our days were not techie then; all we had was Jacko, his distinct voice and his wacky tunes. As I am trying to remember now memories related to him, my mind goes blank.

I don’t know, but I feel like crying.

**i*.


Belated happy 24th birthday to me. I wish myself more hell-raising Junes to come.