800 plus in total and only 57 found so far. That's the numbers following the tragic capsizing of the Princess of The Stars ferry off the coast of Romblon after Typhoon Frank whiplashed its way across the P.I. Some of you guys may have already known but for those who aren't familiar with weather patterns in the Phils, this ain't nothing yet.
The rain poured for nearly 24 hours from Saturday evening and I only saw the sun clearly on Monday morning! Talk about a wet dream! I still consider myself very much foreign and still quite F.O.B. but this tops everything I've come across so far. It's not the worse thing that could happen but it's a taste of what may come... or not (I hope).
I heard there was a frat fight this morning in U.P. Dammit! Missed the show. According to my sources (My aunt), it was bloody and the cops nabbed 4 students. Can anyone say flying glass bottles? Seems like it's the perfect indication that the school year has officially started but who knows for sure what instigated the clash. I hope there's something left for me to shoot tomorrow but I don't think this will be the last I hear of it.
Hmm... what else is there. Not much right now. Just procrastinating a one-pager on reading habits and views on social considerations regarding the former. I'm not too keen cos it's more of a localised topic but I'll put in my two sens worth for the points. Anyone check out Hulk 2 yet? I think I'm a week behind now... dammit!
Asta!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Literary Meanderings
No i'm not going all academia literaria... not yet at least. I'm just lamenting on the long and tiring list of literature readings I'll have to face within the coming months. Bad enough I still have to re-sit some subjects I took last semester. The tamed shrew indeed!
How are my folks back in the peninsular? I wonder if the 'island escape' (no, it's not a skin-flick) is still in motion amidst screeching-sideway dreams of anti-rational proportions...? (right, as if that made common sense) Life in campus has been pretty peachy at the moment. Meetings have been somewhat normal, that includes the fact that professors do miss classes in exchange for exotic trips every once in a while. I'm still waiting for a couple more new faces but that's neither here nor there.
Apart from the usual commuting routine I go through everyday, it gets a little mundane but not that I'm missing much over there anyways. Still, I do miss the occassional yam cha session just because it's being able to hang out with my buds. :D
Still no pics yet but I'm working on it. I think my blog's on the 'most bland' list online, not to mention the lengthy content and incoherent jabberwocky I spew in my entries.
Gotta go now, I'm on borrowed time.
How are my folks back in the peninsular? I wonder if the 'island escape' (no, it's not a skin-flick) is still in motion amidst screeching-sideway dreams of anti-rational proportions...? (right, as if that made common sense) Life in campus has been pretty peachy at the moment. Meetings have been somewhat normal, that includes the fact that professors do miss classes in exchange for exotic trips every once in a while. I'm still waiting for a couple more new faces but that's neither here nor there.
Apart from the usual commuting routine I go through everyday, it gets a little mundane but not that I'm missing much over there anyways. Still, I do miss the occassional yam cha session just because it's being able to hang out with my buds. :D
Still no pics yet but I'm working on it. I think my blog's on the 'most bland' list online, not to mention the lengthy content and incoherent jabberwocky I spew in my entries.
Gotta go now, I'm on borrowed time.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Iskolar Ng Bayan
Now... where was I? Oh ya, I got a surprise call on my way back from class last night. Pretty unexpected yet welcomed anytime! :D Sammi, Cavis and Malvin called me! (Oh, by the way, if you're wondering whether I forgot Rogie-boi was there too, I didn't; it's just cause he spoke to me last so it's sorta "in the order of appearance blah blah...".)
Nice to hear from them again, and with some good and paranoid news. Sammi and Cavis are planning a trip up here for a few days, but not after the alledged "record-richter earthquake" passes. P.S. I found out that 8.0 on the scale isn't a big deal here... it's just a big headache after.
Come on down!!! Mabuhay and you're most welcomed!
So, where was I again...? Hmm... 'Iskolar Ng Bayan' loosely translated 'National Scholar' is the title given to a successful graduate of the University of the Philippines. It's a dignified term used to also subject the poor graduate to political and social abuse and recognition, and I for one will probably benefit as well as indirectly suffer from the stigma. What's that all about? Ask any non-UP graduate or anyone who holds a 'failure-to-admit' grudge against the uni and they'll give you as frank of an answer as you can get.
I think my life as a student officially started on the 5th of June when I had to enlist for my subjects. (Bear in mind that this is also an American-styled enrollment so it may sound familiarly strange to some) Rather than me summarising the entire day, I think a time-list should clearly outline how important this particular day was for me and why I mark it as my 'christening' day:
5:30am - Up and half-way about
6:30am - On my way to UP (travel time in the morning is approximately 1 half to 2 hours)
7:45am - Reach UP (must be one of those good days)
8:00am - Admin window opens for students to get their Form 5A (it's a really stupid thing but transferees like myself were only allowed to start subject enlistment 5 days from the start of class - which meant most class slots were either full or over-flowing. The really asenine part of the enlistment was to get all 18 units or 6 subjects validated before 5pm! Talk about mission-next-to-impossible!)
8:15am - Somehow, get to know a girl who happens to be a transferee too. We both set off on our 'journey' to capture our hidden class slots.
8:45am - Reach the English Department to enlist for at least 2 classes. There's a petition list and we're required to check back at 2pm. There goes lunchtime.
9:00am - Get to the Philippine History Department to enlist for the required Phil. Hist. subject. I got in and it was the only class where the teacher taught in English! Lucky!
9:30am - The time gap is real cos it reflects the waiting line til the department's admin room! Talk about rush-hour jam, this is the SHIT. We're off to other colleges (That's what they call the various buildings which provide the different disciplines for a wide variety of majors; Engineering College, Home Economics College, etc...) Seems like all of the classes are full... d'oh! It was a tiring trip cos apart from the fact that neither of us had our own vehicle, taking the in-campus jeepney didn't make sense and the weather was still cooling off from summer.
11:30am (I think) - Back to the Mass Comm College where the Film department is. Got some advise from the academic head there and had some back-up options to fill-up our unit requirements (Every student needs to maintain at least a 15 unit/5 subject semester. Failure to do so will result in pretty fucked up shit I don't wanna mess with). I got 5 subjects in line (and to my stupid dissapointment found out that because of a technical term error, I couldn't credit the subjects I took last semester! Fucking wankers didn't tell me that! That's political ambiguity for you! Burn me now!!)
1:00pm - Missed lunch... real hungry... real tired... she looks good to eat... can't... focus... must en... list. Back at the English Dept. We've both got only 1 subject each, that means at least 4 more, and we're waiting for the english subjects to be opened. The line is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong and I'm not exagerrating the situation cos that's the reality of enlistment day; the lines! The fuckin long-ass-giraffe-stretched-snake-like lines!!! There's a joke running around the Uni (which I've come to realise is pretty cynically-sarcastic) that UP literally and figuratively also means Unibersidad Ng Pila-Pila... translated University of Queue Lines. I'm not gonna revisit that episode but we did get our English subjects after all! Sweet! 3 down and I can actually get another 3 more making that my full load of 18 units! Nice!
2:45pm - Back to Mass Comm and now to get the 3 film major subjects. Got them (fucking have to do Intro to Film again! I don't mind photog but Intro is just pure painful, likesay) By normal standards this progress is actually unbelievably lucky and fast. So it's off to the admin to validate the classes.
3:45pm - Less than 1 half hour til the window closes. I manage to squeeze my forms in before the turn of the hour. All I can do now is wait. As I waited in painful patience, I stole away from my new-found friend for a cig. She looks totally burned out. Most likely not used to the whole hectic urgency of the System being that she came from a uni that packaged everything for her upon registration.
4:50pm - 10 minutes left now. I'm down to 3 sticks left and my view of chiqui-chiquitas is slowly fading as the day draws to an end. One window is covered... not good. (Apparently while I was slowly burning my lungs, an announcement for the extension of the validating deadline was aired.. fuckin figures)
5:00pm - Somehow, I get my validated form! Woot!!! That's a fuckin dancer! Now I'm set for the sem. Nothing else to worry about except making sure I don't fuck up this time. My friend, oh, her name's Kathleen, Kat, looks worried but she gets her form a little later. Good times.
I don't expect you to be able to stomach the whole entry at one sitting and if you managed to I hope you weren't eating. But what I've described there is the typical day that EVERY UP student has to go through. It gets easier once the student starts on his major subjects, but like life, nothing's certain and things can change anytime. There's 2 parts to a wholistic education experience in UP, one is the General Education subjects and the other is the major subjects. The former basically deals with 3 different disciplines, namely Arts and Humanities, Maths, Science and Technology and Social Science and Philosophy. These 3 are not only to burden the student with more subjects so that the uni makes more money off them, (please, it was sarcastic), but it broadens and creates a critically and creatively knowledgable student who not only is specialised in his chosen discipline, but in other life-applicable disciplines as well. It seems like a boatful of unnecessary bollocks but I beg to differ. In any case, I'll be the guinea pig and you'll be the pessimistic customer who I need to convince.
Class has started already, and I've gotten around to almost all my classes ('cept for World Literature. Dunno where the lazy bastard is... hehe)
I just got a stack of readings to sit through and Bob Marley will get Jah to help me. :)
Peace!
Nice to hear from them again, and with some good and paranoid news. Sammi and Cavis are planning a trip up here for a few days, but not after the alledged "record-richter earthquake" passes. P.S. I found out that 8.0 on the scale isn't a big deal here... it's just a big headache after.
Come on down!!! Mabuhay and you're most welcomed!
So, where was I again...? Hmm... 'Iskolar Ng Bayan' loosely translated 'National Scholar' is the title given to a successful graduate of the University of the Philippines. It's a dignified term used to also subject the poor graduate to political and social abuse and recognition, and I for one will probably benefit as well as indirectly suffer from the stigma. What's that all about? Ask any non-UP graduate or anyone who holds a 'failure-to-admit' grudge against the uni and they'll give you as frank of an answer as you can get.
I think my life as a student officially started on the 5th of June when I had to enlist for my subjects. (Bear in mind that this is also an American-styled enrollment so it may sound familiarly strange to some) Rather than me summarising the entire day, I think a time-list should clearly outline how important this particular day was for me and why I mark it as my 'christening' day:
5:30am - Up and half-way about
6:30am - On my way to UP (travel time in the morning is approximately 1 half to 2 hours)
7:45am - Reach UP (must be one of those good days)
8:00am - Admin window opens for students to get their Form 5A (it's a really stupid thing but transferees like myself were only allowed to start subject enlistment 5 days from the start of class - which meant most class slots were either full or over-flowing. The really asenine part of the enlistment was to get all 18 units or 6 subjects validated before 5pm! Talk about mission-next-to-impossible!)
8:15am - Somehow, get to know a girl who happens to be a transferee too. We both set off on our 'journey' to capture our hidden class slots.
8:45am - Reach the English Department to enlist for at least 2 classes. There's a petition list and we're required to check back at 2pm. There goes lunchtime.
9:00am - Get to the Philippine History Department to enlist for the required Phil. Hist. subject. I got in and it was the only class where the teacher taught in English! Lucky!
9:30am - The time gap is real cos it reflects the waiting line til the department's admin room! Talk about rush-hour jam, this is the SHIT. We're off to other colleges (That's what they call the various buildings which provide the different disciplines for a wide variety of majors; Engineering College, Home Economics College, etc...) Seems like all of the classes are full... d'oh! It was a tiring trip cos apart from the fact that neither of us had our own vehicle, taking the in-campus jeepney didn't make sense and the weather was still cooling off from summer.
11:30am (I think) - Back to the Mass Comm College where the Film department is. Got some advise from the academic head there and had some back-up options to fill-up our unit requirements (Every student needs to maintain at least a 15 unit/5 subject semester. Failure to do so will result in pretty fucked up shit I don't wanna mess with). I got 5 subjects in line (and to my stupid dissapointment found out that because of a technical term error, I couldn't credit the subjects I took last semester! Fucking wankers didn't tell me that! That's political ambiguity for you! Burn me now!!)
1:00pm - Missed lunch... real hungry... real tired... she looks good to eat... can't... focus... must en... list. Back at the English Dept. We've both got only 1 subject each, that means at least 4 more, and we're waiting for the english subjects to be opened. The line is looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong and I'm not exagerrating the situation cos that's the reality of enlistment day; the lines! The fuckin long-ass-giraffe-stretched-snake-like lines!!! There's a joke running around the Uni (which I've come to realise is pretty cynically-sarcastic) that UP literally and figuratively also means Unibersidad Ng Pila-Pila... translated University of Queue Lines. I'm not gonna revisit that episode but we did get our English subjects after all! Sweet! 3 down and I can actually get another 3 more making that my full load of 18 units! Nice!
2:45pm - Back to Mass Comm and now to get the 3 film major subjects. Got them (fucking have to do Intro to Film again! I don't mind photog but Intro is just pure painful, likesay) By normal standards this progress is actually unbelievably lucky and fast. So it's off to the admin to validate the classes.
3:45pm - Less than 1 half hour til the window closes. I manage to squeeze my forms in before the turn of the hour. All I can do now is wait. As I waited in painful patience, I stole away from my new-found friend for a cig. She looks totally burned out. Most likely not used to the whole hectic urgency of the System being that she came from a uni that packaged everything for her upon registration.
4:50pm - 10 minutes left now. I'm down to 3 sticks left and my view of chiqui-chiquitas is slowly fading as the day draws to an end. One window is covered... not good. (Apparently while I was slowly burning my lungs, an announcement for the extension of the validating deadline was aired.. fuckin figures)
5:00pm - Somehow, I get my validated form! Woot!!! That's a fuckin dancer! Now I'm set for the sem. Nothing else to worry about except making sure I don't fuck up this time. My friend, oh, her name's Kathleen, Kat, looks worried but she gets her form a little later. Good times.
I don't expect you to be able to stomach the whole entry at one sitting and if you managed to I hope you weren't eating. But what I've described there is the typical day that EVERY UP student has to go through. It gets easier once the student starts on his major subjects, but like life, nothing's certain and things can change anytime. There's 2 parts to a wholistic education experience in UP, one is the General Education subjects and the other is the major subjects. The former basically deals with 3 different disciplines, namely Arts and Humanities, Maths, Science and Technology and Social Science and Philosophy. These 3 are not only to burden the student with more subjects so that the uni makes more money off them, (please, it was sarcastic), but it broadens and creates a critically and creatively knowledgable student who not only is specialised in his chosen discipline, but in other life-applicable disciplines as well. It seems like a boatful of unnecessary bollocks but I beg to differ. In any case, I'll be the guinea pig and you'll be the pessimistic customer who I need to convince.
Class has started already, and I've gotten around to almost all my classes ('cept for World Literature. Dunno where the lazy bastard is... hehe)
I just got a stack of readings to sit through and Bob Marley will get Jah to help me. :)
Peace!
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Enrollment Blues
Ha-HAAH!!! Ha-haah...huh...sigh... Nothing comes close to the rush of rushing from one college to the other, jostling through what seems endless hordes of students clambering on to the little hope of being able to make it for the final cut... welcome to enlistment week!
Check it out, 18 hrs a week, 6 subjects (at least), and classes from (most probably) 7am til 7pm! In spite of all this, I'm still going ahead? Well, no one for one thing has 12 hr long days, and secondly, it's pretty fast when the groove starts moving, likesay.
But all said and done, I'm still quite far away from that point yet cause I haven't even gotten enrolled for the subjects and it's gonna be war tomorrow morning! HAA-WOO!!!
Btw, Narnia 2 is not too bad to watch! For you Narnianatics, I won't spoil it for now but Prince Caspian's ... and the kings and queens of old... nuff said.
Check it out, 18 hrs a week, 6 subjects (at least), and classes from (most probably) 7am til 7pm! In spite of all this, I'm still going ahead? Well, no one for one thing has 12 hr long days, and secondly, it's pretty fast when the groove starts moving, likesay.
But all said and done, I'm still quite far away from that point yet cause I haven't even gotten enrolled for the subjects and it's gonna be war tomorrow morning! HAA-WOO!!!
Btw, Narnia 2 is not too bad to watch! For you Narnianatics, I won't spoil it for now but Prince Caspian's ... and the kings and queens of old... nuff said.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Mabuhay! Welcome to The Philippines!
So... *small sigh*... so, here I am. Where? In the Philippines. What I'm doing here? Basically got back to the basics of advanced academic institutionalisation, a.k.a. studying to obtain my degree. Yeah, the last line before that didn't make sense so I thought one of you might be choking a little. It's almost that time of the year where the mad rush to enroll and enlist subjects and courses is about to start and it may end abruptly cos the timeline is so short. Needless to say, I've had my fair share of experiencing the rush of signing-up and keeping up with the deadlines and it's been surreal thusfar. Some of you may have thought I was already enrolled but it doesn't work that way here. Foreign students are allocated certain dates and times of the year for them to register as a regular student, and that's usually the first semester (June) of the school year. And like myself, I'm finding it a little more than troublesome getting used to a completely different bureaucracy but heck, it's all part and parcel of living the student's life here innit? :)
For now, I haven't even gotten my student number yet, but as soon as I do, it's more running around for me (signing up for subjects, getting signatures here and there, etc...). The more I think about it the less I worry about what I have to do next cos going with the flow as long as you don't go too slow kinda works here. Nevertheless, one can't be too careful with the slightly more liberal culture and philosophies that are practiced here but I can't help imagining what that might be like. *Hmm...*
Most foreigners have likened the Filipino culture to the French; sensitive, less outspoken, but willing to give anyone the benefit of a doubt... seems to me that I've got some 'softening' to do on my part. It's not that I mind it at all, it's just a matter of perspective. Helpful, accommodating, friendly - some of the common attitudes found among these lovely people; I think I might just get used to living here for the moment.
In case you're wondering why the blog name suggests a certain redundancy... well it DOES! Just goes to show how much I've actually missed writing (ranting) on and on about stuff I don't figure out about much... (there he goes again). In any case, I'm running out of time for now but I'll be back posting here as often as I can. Maybe next time I'll be kind enough to add some pics along with the bombardment of words and rhetorics in each post.
Til next time, see ya sucka's!!! ;)
For now, I haven't even gotten my student number yet, but as soon as I do, it's more running around for me (signing up for subjects, getting signatures here and there, etc...). The more I think about it the less I worry about what I have to do next cos going with the flow as long as you don't go too slow kinda works here. Nevertheless, one can't be too careful with the slightly more liberal culture and philosophies that are practiced here but I can't help imagining what that might be like. *Hmm...*
Most foreigners have likened the Filipino culture to the French; sensitive, less outspoken, but willing to give anyone the benefit of a doubt... seems to me that I've got some 'softening' to do on my part. It's not that I mind it at all, it's just a matter of perspective. Helpful, accommodating, friendly - some of the common attitudes found among these lovely people; I think I might just get used to living here for the moment.
In case you're wondering why the blog name suggests a certain redundancy... well it DOES! Just goes to show how much I've actually missed writing (ranting) on and on about stuff I don't figure out about much... (there he goes again). In any case, I'm running out of time for now but I'll be back posting here as often as I can. Maybe next time I'll be kind enough to add some pics along with the bombardment of words and rhetorics in each post.
Til next time, see ya sucka's!!! ;)
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