Back again June 19, 2009
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Netopia, Vega, LB – Here I am in a public Internet shop again, after more than a year since Smartbro came into my life, writing on this site and uploading pictures on another site. Reason: I have to give in to a family pressure to post the pictures of our post-summer “gimmick” last weekend via my new and first-ever digicam.
Anyway, I began to discover blogging and cyber life through this Internet shop. So it’s like a reunion of sorts. But it’s different to do online writing right at the confines of your own physical space. There’s no built-in pressure. Here, I’m doing the act because I must do something while waiting for the uploads to finish. The speed is more manageable than the Net connection at home, but it still leaves much to be desired.
Anyway, my FS blog I closed and my entries there I imported and uploaded on this site sans the pictures accompanying the texts though. Better than losing the texts altogether. There’s another blogsite I keep at Multiply. I write differently there. More of the spur-of-the-moment type of writing. And it’s meant for fewer readers.
First Sem. This semester ushered in with a promise of work and and a host of responsibilities. I have 2 undergrad teaching assignments and 1 graduate class. And as a student, I have one graduate class to attend at UPD-CMC. It is always a full week. I must wake up at 6 a.m., report to work by 8 a.m., go home from school the earliest at 7 p.m., and sleep by 1 a.m. I don’t want to elaborate.
Yet I enjoy the stress and gain strength from the thought that a full life is worth living.
In retrospect June 5, 2009
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After two days of a tiring crossenrollment process, here I am back again as a Netizen, but with my legs aching after braving through lengthy walks and complicated turns.
In retrospect, I wish I could simplify things and emerge through the entire experience whole and peaceful. But things didn’t turn out that way. There could (and should) be a kinder and quicker registration process, I believe. Better than that.
I took me a day to process my request for crossreg, made difficult by sudden rush of rains that caused brownout and system failure. Then, another day to enlist and pay. But in between, I was made to go back and forth to my host college and the university library to get signatures and clearance, respectively, which to me, I suppose, can be forgone.
The distance of buildings where reg papers could be processed make the procedure doubly harder. (Jeepney rides could not help either.) Maybe putting office representatives housed in a reg area together can ease out the system and avoid unnecessary walks and transfer from one building to another.
Even in the paying center, I got overwhelmed by the loops of payers waiting, at the very least, for two hours to get their turn. Maybe I must not discount the fact that I was enrolling in the country’s largest university. Yet, maybe, too, given enough budget, the premier state university can automate the assessment of fees, which until now is done manually.
Yet, again, I admire the student volunteers, who from time to time get impatient too, who sacrificed and endured heat and stress assisting all enrollees, leading the way, and answering queries. They, to me, epitomize the real “Iskolar ng Bayan” whose main goal is “to serve the people.”
Overall, the experience, though rigorous, made me see systems and procedures that could better be improved and, on the side, made me realize, yes practice, that patience is still a virtue that can see you through at the end of the day. Amen to that.
Hot! April 17, 2009
Posted by bobbetrevilla in Academe, Work Life.2 comments
Fiery. Agonizing. Hot!
But now it’s raining. Stench from earth arose from the pavement. It’s still humid and hot. I don’t feel so well even after a late-morning visit to my fave spa-massage place. Couldn’t help but trace the source of all these stress: work!
By an unexpected turn of events, I saw myself going back to the classroom again the week that was. A writing class was assigned to me this summer. 5-7 p.m. Every day.
Tired from whole-day office work, this summer teaching load comes like a breather. Yes, no matter what, I am a teacher. And the classroom is my refuge. End of the day, despite the boiling temperature, there I am cool and complete.
Charting our future direction February 28, 2009
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The stratplan workshop we had coordinated for two days at Tagaytay City was, to a certain extent, a re-discovery of sort. That wasn’t all fun, but it somehow de-stressed.
At the onset, Father Rector said, in the Scripture, the mountain has always played a significant metaphor in the life of our Lord. It was there, for one, where He transfigured to give the chosen apostles a glimpse of who He really is. It may be simply a lofty dream for the disciples, but more than the mesmerizing images, is the fact that tomorrow they’d wake up to face reality.
That may be the analogy for the two-day rigorous stratplan workshop we had done for the future of the Colegio. Preparations for this workshop were like two months in the unit level. In the Research Department, where we work, we spent two serious weeks of laboring over our stratplan matrix and revising our KRA definition and strategic institutional objectives. We finished the process on the last minute: the night before we left for Tagaytay.
We hiked up the mountain to be mesmerized by our lofty plans and dreams and to set direction for our medium-term and long-term future. Only to go down two days later (to Jerusalem, so said Father Rector), not to get crucified (hehe!) just like Christ, but to translate our visions into reality.
There were heated arguments in the process. In an institution ruled by incisive voices, this didn’t come as a surprise. The opportunity given to talk and voice out one’s stake in this entire dream was made more meaningful by every constituent’s ability to forward ideas without sounding like hard-sell or without forcing it through. In the end, despite dissenting voices, the day ended with us singing, dancing, laughing our hearts out. For in a real convergence, differences are tamed by the common stand to achieve one, singular goal.
Less talk, More visuals December 3, 2008
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It was raining the whole day. So good to sleep at home. But there I was at the office, whiling the time away, sipping coffee, attending to a myriad of works that beg for my attention.
A welcome respite came mid-morning. A sweet surprise arrived in the form of a Christmas-tree gift box containing a sweety bunch of chocolate-coated biscuits meant as kris-kringle gift for this week. Nice! It brightened my dull, boring morning. The box now sits on my desk as a Christmas decor no less!
Waiting for 5.30 p.m. after office hours is also a test of patience for me. I’m all alone in my room. Browsing Smart Writing. Preparing for my sole writing class this semester. The office gets colder. Silence deafening. I can hear my mind talking.
A vicious cycle November 4, 2008
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Almost sleeping time. You know my new work routine compels me to sleep a little earlier than the usual. Sort of a sacrifice for me. I’m almost drowsy. I don’t have work to bring home this time. None yet. But I really lack sleep. Zzzzz.
I enjoy my second-sem life. At least this early part. Fewer teaching load. More time to ruminate on things (and probably court creativity|stare him early in the eye). But I have, as a price for it, stay practically the whole day in my new office. And there create, write, plan, stare sometimes on the blank wall [hehehe!] to court my muse or while the time away. When was the last time I did serious office work? I could remember: eight years ago!
Sometimes sleep comes in the wee hours of the afternoon, but I have to sit still and work. The blue sofa there invites, is an inviting presence. Unexpected visitors come and I forget sleep, get entertained by the folks, and the time drags on, moves, and continues to row. This is office work. I remember PCARRD and CHED-UPLB Zonal Research Center. I couldn’t help it. It’s a vicious cycle. An intersperse of research-academe-research-academe. I’ve come full circle.
Signs of the time October 30, 2008
Posted by bobbetrevilla in Academe, Here and Now, Metaphors for Life, Visuals.2 comments
And so I was back at the UPLB campus this afternoon.
This scene greeted me: leaves falling from the tall trees like it was fall in October. There was serene wind seemingly marking the end of the month or the demise of a semester. I don’t know. The environ was so silent, sacred, shutting off any words or noise from ruling the moment. And from that inspired moment lingered this image of green, speed, and serenity. Savor the sight of UPLB’s Thai Pavilion captured in the silence and peace of semestral break.
Proof of Change. Yesterday, as a way of marking my work transition, I was asked by the Human Resource Department to secure a new identification card. That took merely 15 minutes to process. It symbolically represents my passage from a fulltime faculty to a research administrator. The joy of teaching consumed eight years of my productive life in the academe (Letran setting). Now I’m going back to my research roots.
This is real! October 27, 2008
Posted by bobbetrevilla in Academe, Angst, Here and Now, Musings.4 comments
I received and signed this morning that single document that leads me to a work transition I have to live by starting November 3. This is life telling me that responsibilities are greater when you climb up one step higher from your original post. And I have to live up to the expectations and trust given me. So help me God.
Questions? What do I answer when some colleagues or folks I meet somewhere–not necessarily friends–ask me silly questions (like: Why haven’t you married yet? Why not rest from studying and enjoy life?)?
Then these questions will naturally be followed by unsolicited advices like get married/it’s difficult to grow old alone/you may be successful but without a family of your own, there’ll always be something lacking/enjoy life/refrain from studying and pursuing higher degrees/life is short, enjoy it to the fullest–or words to that effect.
My answers: I’ll have my time; it will come/I can’t afford to stop now, I’m almost done with my course. Or I’ll just keep mum, letting them deliver their self-initiated homilies, hehehe. Bottomline is respect. Hope they have the same kind of respect to people who choose to be different from them.
I don’t want to go that extent of saying that these people are insecured or plain intrusive or are losers themselves looking for loopholes in others. Maybe they are, but who am I to judge them? I can’t give them unsolicited advices. That’s not my type. It’s enough that I know them as they are or so they seem to appear.
Bottomline is, let’s give the other person the peace that he or she deserves. Intruding into the private life of an individual is unhealthy and undemocratic. If that person doesn’t meddle with your personal life, give him or her the same courtesy and privacy any urbane individual is willing to give. As simple as that. Respect.
So the next time people ask me intrusive questions like that, I’ll refer them to this blog entry for my answers. Hahahaha! Peace to you!
Pesky. There are moments in our lives when certain personalities go back (after some hiatus) to test us and make us weak again. I always fall prey to this trap. I haven’t learned my lesson. But at least the test makes me more real, liberates me to a certain extent. I think it’s in the Wizard of Oz where I heard or read these words: the more rubbed you are, the more real you become (paraphrase mine). In other words, when one is challenged, he/she becomes more authentic. Figure that out.
