Bobbet’s World

Sending Off October 14, 2008

On the lighter mood, this afternoon we gave tribute to two veteran mentors in the languages area of the school of arts and sciences here in Letran-Calamba. I am referring to Ma’am Belen Batolina and Ma’am Au Alemania, both are set to retire this coming second semester. Words are not enough to express how much they have contributed to our area.  They are both icons for us in the languages faculty. In my one-and-half-year stint as languages coordinator, they served as our inspirations. Personally, they showed me that age was never a barrier for teachers as seasoned and experienced as themselves to support and respect our programs and, to a certain extent, my leadership. You will always be treasured, Ma’am Belen and Ma’am Au. We will certainly miss your presence.

Power and Poetry September 23, 2008

Last night’s edition of Poetika went on mild, cool, tamed. Minimalist could be the apt term. It lasted for only an hour. Twelve student readers rendered the power of poetry alive. Poetry is hegemonic. It can ascribe power. It is empowerment itself.

Poetika, for the last five school years, has always been an avenue for creative expression and synergy. No amount of hardwork can surpass the many lives and souls that this yearly poetry reading session is able to touch.

Commendable people are too many to mention. The Languages and Communication Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences came full force. We prepared for this for more than a month. The Communication Arts Society of Letran or CASTLE did a good job too from leg work to crowd control and stage management.

Plans for next year’s round cropped up as early as last night. We have a lot more work to do; certainly, a bright future looming large in the horizon. Till next year.

Off to Batad September 11, 2008

Few hours from now, we’re off to Batad, Banaue. This is part of our field work for a theory construction class. Speak of theorizing or social construction in a setting so ripe for meaning-making and global understanding.

Preparations for this venture took almost a month. We have to prepare both physically and theoretically. Our subgroup, for example, will look into the data site in the light of structural functionalism. We intend to come up with a volume of stories and theoretical constructions about Batad soon.

Meantime, I must pack up my things. You’ll miss me for three days. Soon, I’ll tell the stories and post the images. All the best for us!

The Weekend Report September 6, 2008

I’m finally giving in to the temptation.

I’m still awake this wee hour. Had just finished 90% of my third chapter for Smart Writing. And to say that I’m tired is an understatement. My back aches. My head is ready to burst. Words come like magnified texts this midnight.

I’m thankful though that the week ended up right. We had our last formal class at UP Diliman last Thursday. Save for some personal consultations and online submissions, we’re done with the sem. I’ll miss McDo Philcoa, the long walk from the main library to Plaridel Hall, the late-night trip, and all that would remind me of a semester-stint in a campus where I was virtually a stranger and a silent voice.

We had fun at Buwan ng Wika culminating program yesterday, despite meager resources, tension, and the stress out of fear that we might not deliver; but we did. Our AB Comm students made themselves visible, their value felt. But the Caprisaa declamation-oration contest was something else. It was another story.

This morning, we also ended up formally our org comm class at Letran with my retrospective lecture. My students wrapped up our session by evaluating my teaching performance. That was our last meeting, one session earlier because next week I’m off to Batad, Banaue, part of our Theory Construction class’ field work. I’m beginning to prepare for that. The thought of it brings shiver down my spine. I should bring good stories back home.

Also, I’m moving towards Episode 17 of Lost’s Season 3. It has become a breather. Something I always look forward to at the end of the day when everything about me is depleted, I need something to boost me up and transport me to a world where hope is high and the future, though seemingly bleak, is still worth the wait.

I don’t know what time I’ll wake up later. Today’s Josel’s baptism day. He’s my nth inaanak. What I know I must wake up a little earlier than the usual. After lunch, I’m back to work again. Will finish the last leg of my writing assignment. And then more.

Like I didn’t go on a weekend break.

From the mundane to an occasional bout of armchair theorizing July 15, 2008

There are moments when I need to pause and sort things out. Like now.

So much had happened since last weekend. Sunday saw me attending a parish newsletter meeting. I was made part of the group upon recommendation of the parish council prexy, who talked to me one Sunday ago about that project and without exerting an effort to convince me easily got my yes. The writing workshop set early August will bring us to the Philippine High School for the Arts as a creative venue and data site.

Last Sunday also saw me and Chito visiting PC City and Robinson’s at LB for the long-time plan to purchase computer printer and DVD player. Installing the printer took longer than we expected. It took Chito almost half of the day till late evening doing the thing. Thanks for his patience. Where would I be without him? Then I ended the day that day enjoying the DVD player and my copy of Proof, again.

A lot of other things happened early this week. The prospect of attending a media conference-tour end of the semester somewhere excites. Further, the seminar on classroom observation today somehow opened my mind into the many realities of supervision that I didn’t realize exist. The one-day seminar-workshop saw us interacting with other administrators and supervisors from neighboring schools. It couldn’t help also but bring us back to the qualities of good teaching. One thing struck me, though, in the discussion of what does it take to become an effective teacher. One issue raised was that of being contextual, interactive, collaborative, integrative, and experiential as hallmarks of effective teaching-learning environment.

In my attempt to bring it to the level of theorizing, I’d like to think that effective teaching goes beyond the literal and the theoretical; it goes as far as the reflective and the reflexive — multiple meanings are respected in the same manner that the role of the learner in discovering knowledge is being brought out to the fore. Or, if one wishes to become constructivist, so said the speakers, the teacher could opt to appear dumb or ignorant before the students, i.e., to let the learners do the talking and the walking before he/she (the teacher) gets in and embarks on a journey with them (the students). Sort of saying, gathering grounded data is a good starting point for the teaching-learning process.

That to me is a good affirmation that even in the classroom, quali traditions rule. So much for my interpretive bias.

Random Shots, Slices of Reality July 5, 2008

What a tough week! What an understatement. The week saw me doing demanding jobs all at the same time. All these extended till this weekend.

My Diliman class is getting tougher. The weekly travel suspends my reality, but works build up on the road there. My adviser told me to disregard the sacrifices for the meantime. I’d rather look into the good it could do to my arm-reach goal: my dissertation.

I enjoy though my UPLB graduate classes. The theory construction class was fun this week. I enjoyed the prof’s style of butting in and telling stories. She’s a social geographer and the travels she had add spice to an otherwise armchair theorizing boredom of the class. We look forward to our end-of-the-term trip to Batad, Mountain Province where, she said, the amphitheater-like rice terraces open its cloudy curtains every morning to let a view of its dome lit by sun. Only, we have to bear one-and-a-half hours of walking. Worth the pains, though.

My PDM class is getting creative. This afternoon, we had real-life project sharing and class activity that involved posting meta cards on the cork board, but the fun was on finding where the card should fall under, that is, classifying ideas as blueprint or learning process type of project development and management. I took a random shot of the cards posted on the board. Obviously, a part of my continuing struggle to document and capture slices of my reality, or maybe this was my humble attempt to do message analysis.

In between grad classes and academic works this week were sacred realities like (1) the free scalp massage at BK, (2) coor’s meeting replete with foods, (3) the two-hour lull at the UPLB main lib this lunch break that saw me working on things that had been there all along, (4) reactive and interactive reports of my grad class this morning, (5) an esoteric walk with a classmate this afternoon after class, from CPAF down to Grove, and (6) coming late for Lean’s birthday party at KFC today.

Tomorrow is Sunday. I hope to sleep more and if time permits, to move casually and comfortably. But that I think is wishful thinking. Because at my back are old works begging for my attention and all of which I must confront. Important thing is, I’m still alive and happy and capable of lucid thinking. The recent survey of a group of international psychologists on happiness index says it all: we tend to become happy when we’re given the freedom to do what we want. I’m like that. The survey talks to me directly. That’s me.

Walk. A Rejoinder. June 19, 2008

Yes, take a walk. Again.

That was what I did again inside the Diliman campus yesterday afternoon. There was a voice in me telling me to walk the green walk. (See my Green World album, photo gallery.)

That was cool. It had just rained. The road was wet. The trees were verdant, evergreen. The air was cooler. There were those walking casually. Some jogging. On mountain bike. I was there. Documenting, hehe. Speak of message analysis.

I had fun walking. I was happy. I passed through half of the campus. Melchor Hall (College of Engineering). University Theater. Abelardo Hall (College of Music). And my destination: Plaridel Hall (College of Mass Comm).

That was a nice preparation for a hardcore scrutiny of our CR 284 topics. Haha. We consumed the three hours of  our time. We walked through the gamut of our proposed research problems. Quali-quanti merger. Post-positivist. (I’ll  reserve one blog entry for that particular story.)

I went home late. The travel was fast, cold (with the aircon level in the bus reaching its maxi limit, hehe). The mind walked all throughout the relentlessly quick and icy (exag!) trip.

Back home, there were more walk-and-talk moments. From a different realm. Of a different degree. To a different end.