Thanks for the memories
Sorry for this long-overdue post; I should have updated a few days ago but I was too excited for summer to make an update.
Well, this is a late reaction, but... hooray for summer!
After spending Holy Week doing homework (for the first time ever), after the sleepless nights toiling away on papers and projects from last week to Tuesday of this week, after an entire year of stress and fun combined... summer's here! Never have I appreciated the summer vacation more than I do now.
Of course, I do feel sad because I'm going to miss certain people who made my freshman year memorable. So before I move on to discuss my plans for the summer (and a little bit of sad news), I'd like to give them my thanks.
Thank you to all the new friends I've made - Tessa, Andrea, Dex, Willy, Ferdie, and so many others (sorry for not mentioning all the names). :) I don't seem to have a solid barkada (clique) here in my university, but being a butterfly has its advantages. I get to hang out with different people on different days of the week and thus, I think I get to spend equal time with the people I meet. Thank you for being there for me and for surviving my mood swings. Thank you for not letting me down. Thank you for making me happy and feel less alone, less disconnected. :) I hope we can become closer in the future. I hope that we can hang out together more often, be it at a cosplay convention or simply at the SOM Mall.
Thank you to the people I've met in the orgs I've joined, especially the people I've met in Celadon! I enjoy talking to some of you through YM; you are lovely people and you make me feel at home. I especially love the Celadon people I've met because in Celadon, I feel as if I have a family. I think I will hang out more often at the Celadon Room next year.
Thank you to the teachers who made me look forward to class. I haven't felt strong resentment for any of my teachers this school year (yes, really), which means that there exists a little bit of something that I liked in all of my teachers. But these are the teachers who stand out in my memories:
- Sir Tuason, you almost made me love Math, and I think that you're cool for that. I mentioned this in a previous post, and I'll reiterate it: I like how you're so down-to-earth that you can relate with your students, as if you are actually one of us, our classmate. Whenever I ask you questions during consultation hours, I feel like I'm talking to a really brilliant classmate and not a stuffy Math professor. Thank you for that! I wish you would teach Statistics so that I could, perhaps, learn to love it, even just a bit.
- Fermin-sensei, domo arigatou gozaimasu for the enjoyable Nihongo sessions! During the first semester, JSP 1 was the class that I looked forward to the most. I still miss JSP a lot, and I think about it often. I wish I could take it all over again! I also missed chatting with you occasionally after class. I'm planning to minor in Japanese studies, so maybe we're going to see each other again next year, or the year after the next. Until then, please wait for me!
- Thank you, Sir Jamendang, for making Filipino amusing, and for being the unconventional teacher that you are. You remind me of Eikichi Onizuka from GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka). I've always wanted to have an Onizuka-like teacher, and I got one in you. Hope to see you in the Fil department next year.
- Ma'am Alma, thank you for putting up with my incompetence in wushu class! You patiently answered my questions on how to execute this move and that. I'm still crappy at wushu, but after everything I went through, I appreciated wushu more. I'm actually thinking of joining the wushu club, believe it or not.
- Most of all, Sir Exie, thank you so much for everything - from the first day of school up until the last! I don't regret having you as my professor; in fact, I cherish the privilege of being part of your class, the Merit English class. It wasn't easy, and I often felt inadequate. I fretted a lot and worried about not meeting your standards. I would get tongue-tied and end up saying foolish things in class when I actually meant to say something more meaningful. But everything was worth it. You challenged me to do better, not to settle for mediocrity. In your class, I could not come up with something in less than an hour and expect to get an A. Because of that, I learned to sit down, to read and to write a bit more slowly (while still keeping up to the your pace). Taking things slowly helped me ponder upon things a bit more deeply, and to think about what I wrote. I couldn't just rephrase something trite to make it sound flowery and inspiring and then pass it to get things over with. I wrote with all my heart, not only for the sake of an A but also for the sake of improving on my writing, and it's all thanks to you, Sir. You offered us alternative viewpoints on issues and made us think. You made us look at things in a new light - for instance, I never thought that iPods could be a symptom of the darker side of this "Me Generation." And these things we learned did not remain in the classroom. I believe that all of us M04 students took the things we learned to heart, because I've learned to be more observant of the things around me, to take things beyond face value. Also, Sir, I don't know if you'll ever read this, or if I'm rambling now, but I almost gave up on writing. I suffered from bout after bout of writer's block and wondered if I really was good at writing. If it turns out that I have achieved some growth in my writing, I owe it to you, Sir - to those writing workshops we had in English 12 and English 101, to your deconstruction of my papers, to your comments and critiques. You inspired me to aim higher. But at the same time, you inspired me to go for my dreams. It sounds so cheesy and so unreal, but Sir, I do feel this urge to make my plan a reality, to take three minors and not to be ashamed or guilty for thinking of my own happiness (in terms of my future career) for once. I feared you, but I respected you. I even got to thinking that you were cool, like a stern and distant but concerned (in your own way) father. You remind me of my English teacher when I was a high school junior. Like her, you challenged me to do better. I thank you sincerely for that. I will always remember you. I am seriously thinking of minoring in Literature. I hope that my plans won't remain mere plans. Watch out for me, Sir; I'll be back! :)
And since I've mentioned Sir Exie, M04, you deserve a special mention as well. It's kind of late now, and I fear that I'm rambling too much. But anyway, thank you, M04, thank you for those times we spent together. The first few meetings we had left me feeling out of place. "Am I supposed to be here? I am not as smart as they are," I thought. But eventually, I found my place in M04, and now I have no regrets about being a part of this class. Never have I seen a class this brilliant, a class that embraces diversity. I love you all for your brilliance, for the interesting answers and insights that you share in class, for being wonderful groupmates (I love working with M04 people when it comes to projects), for being nice (I think that you are all nice people. Admittedly I feared that some of you would have superiority complexes, but I've never encountered anyone in M04 who behaved that way.). Although I am not close with most of you (close as in chummy - think barkada and all that), I think of most of you as friends. I hope I'm not being the "feeling-close-pero-hindi-naman" type when I say this. But I say so because I can approach any of your randomly during those little breaks we have in between English and Lit, without feeling like I'm "disturbing the universe" or being creepy by approaching you for no reason. But most of all, I love you, M04, for appreciating and embracing diversity. Whether it's accepting differing opinions (while challenging them in a civil, peaceful manner) or finding someone else's quirks interesting, M04 is all about diversity. I mean, we've got a philatelist, a stylophile, bookworms, awesome musicians... everyone seems interesting in his or her own right. In M04, I never felt guilty for being weirder or nerdier or more introverted than others, and that's because everyone seems to be in touch with his or her "inner nerd" (please take this as a compliment, as I think that there's nothing wrong with being nerdier than others). So what if so-and-so collects stamps or fountain pens? M04 sees nothing wrong with that. Thank you so much for the diversity you promoted, everyone. I think this was the main reason why I found my place in M04. "The art of losing" is actually hard to master, because I'm going to miss you. It makes me sad that you are actually my last English and Lit class ever (unless I take a minor). Next year, this class that I looked forward to will be no more. Gone. Replaced by hellish, boring, rigid Accounting. Boo. M04, you made me look forward to school, and now, like Patty, I'm heartbroken that I won't be taking classes with most of you next year. Still, thank you for being the wonderful classmates that you are. I hope we can get together sometime.
Aside from M04, I have to thank some of my blockmates over at P1! Um, I'm sorry, but I don't seem to have much to say, because *eep* the sad truth is that I am not that close to most of you. It seems that we only talk about general things and homework. Sadly, we do not seem to bond that much. I guess my introverted nature does alienate me from the rest of you. It also doesn't help that we had different classes, especially during the first semester. Nevertheless, you guys strike me as one amusing and energetic bunch. I sincerely hope to know more of you guys next year. After all, we'll be spending more classes together.
Lastly, a big, big, big word of thanks to my old friends and some of my batchmates! Thank you for not losing touch with me, especially to Richmond, Leslie, Andria and Jasmine for being the super-great friends that you are! Richie, Leslie, I enjoyed that one time we hung out at Leslie's place and watched funny videos on YouTube. You guys are wonderful friends and I'm glad to have known you. Thank you to those batchmates of mine who have grown a bit closer to me. It's all thanks to us being together in the same school. Leslie, I feel our friendship has grown stronger. Jhenel, we weren't close before, but since you always carpool with me, we've been talking more lately. (Sorry for being a pathetic conversationalist.) :) We will surely become closer next school year! Zhandra, Rachelle, Nicole, Sasy, and several others: it also seems that we've been talking more! Yay! :) Now I appreciate my Judenite friends more than ever, haha.
So that's it, I guess. In general, I'm thankful for the school year that was. Like any other year, it was (duh!) full of ups and downs. Sometimes I felt like the downs outnumbered the ups, but these people mentioned above helped me get through and gave me reasons to look forward to going to school.
I hope I meet these people again next year. (Well, I'll surely meet some of them.) :) For now, I'm going to enjoy my summer break! :)
Well, this is a late reaction, but... hooray for summer!
After spending Holy Week doing homework (for the first time ever), after the sleepless nights toiling away on papers and projects from last week to Tuesday of this week, after an entire year of stress and fun combined... summer's here! Never have I appreciated the summer vacation more than I do now.
Of course, I do feel sad because I'm going to miss certain people who made my freshman year memorable. So before I move on to discuss my plans for the summer (and a little bit of sad news), I'd like to give them my thanks.
Thank you to all the new friends I've made - Tessa, Andrea, Dex, Willy, Ferdie, and so many others (sorry for not mentioning all the names). :) I don't seem to have a solid barkada (clique) here in my university, but being a butterfly has its advantages. I get to hang out with different people on different days of the week and thus, I think I get to spend equal time with the people I meet. Thank you for being there for me and for surviving my mood swings. Thank you for not letting me down. Thank you for making me happy and feel less alone, less disconnected. :) I hope we can become closer in the future. I hope that we can hang out together more often, be it at a cosplay convention or simply at the SOM Mall.
Thank you to the people I've met in the orgs I've joined, especially the people I've met in Celadon! I enjoy talking to some of you through YM; you are lovely people and you make me feel at home. I especially love the Celadon people I've met because in Celadon, I feel as if I have a family. I think I will hang out more often at the Celadon Room next year.
Thank you to the teachers who made me look forward to class. I haven't felt strong resentment for any of my teachers this school year (yes, really), which means that there exists a little bit of something that I liked in all of my teachers. But these are the teachers who stand out in my memories:
- Sir Tuason, you almost made me love Math, and I think that you're cool for that. I mentioned this in a previous post, and I'll reiterate it: I like how you're so down-to-earth that you can relate with your students, as if you are actually one of us, our classmate. Whenever I ask you questions during consultation hours, I feel like I'm talking to a really brilliant classmate and not a stuffy Math professor. Thank you for that! I wish you would teach Statistics so that I could, perhaps, learn to love it, even just a bit.
- Fermin-sensei, domo arigatou gozaimasu for the enjoyable Nihongo sessions! During the first semester, JSP 1 was the class that I looked forward to the most. I still miss JSP a lot, and I think about it often. I wish I could take it all over again! I also missed chatting with you occasionally after class. I'm planning to minor in Japanese studies, so maybe we're going to see each other again next year, or the year after the next. Until then, please wait for me!
- Thank you, Sir Jamendang, for making Filipino amusing, and for being the unconventional teacher that you are. You remind me of Eikichi Onizuka from GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka). I've always wanted to have an Onizuka-like teacher, and I got one in you. Hope to see you in the Fil department next year.
- Ma'am Alma, thank you for putting up with my incompetence in wushu class! You patiently answered my questions on how to execute this move and that. I'm still crappy at wushu, but after everything I went through, I appreciated wushu more. I'm actually thinking of joining the wushu club, believe it or not.
- Most of all, Sir Exie, thank you so much for everything - from the first day of school up until the last! I don't regret having you as my professor; in fact, I cherish the privilege of being part of your class, the Merit English class. It wasn't easy, and I often felt inadequate. I fretted a lot and worried about not meeting your standards. I would get tongue-tied and end up saying foolish things in class when I actually meant to say something more meaningful. But everything was worth it. You challenged me to do better, not to settle for mediocrity. In your class, I could not come up with something in less than an hour and expect to get an A. Because of that, I learned to sit down, to read and to write a bit more slowly (while still keeping up to the your pace). Taking things slowly helped me ponder upon things a bit more deeply, and to think about what I wrote. I couldn't just rephrase something trite to make it sound flowery and inspiring and then pass it to get things over with. I wrote with all my heart, not only for the sake of an A but also for the sake of improving on my writing, and it's all thanks to you, Sir. You offered us alternative viewpoints on issues and made us think. You made us look at things in a new light - for instance, I never thought that iPods could be a symptom of the darker side of this "Me Generation." And these things we learned did not remain in the classroom. I believe that all of us M04 students took the things we learned to heart, because I've learned to be more observant of the things around me, to take things beyond face value. Also, Sir, I don't know if you'll ever read this, or if I'm rambling now, but I almost gave up on writing. I suffered from bout after bout of writer's block and wondered if I really was good at writing. If it turns out that I have achieved some growth in my writing, I owe it to you, Sir - to those writing workshops we had in English 12 and English 101, to your deconstruction of my papers, to your comments and critiques. You inspired me to aim higher. But at the same time, you inspired me to go for my dreams. It sounds so cheesy and so unreal, but Sir, I do feel this urge to make my plan a reality, to take three minors and not to be ashamed or guilty for thinking of my own happiness (in terms of my future career) for once. I feared you, but I respected you. I even got to thinking that you were cool, like a stern and distant but concerned (in your own way) father. You remind me of my English teacher when I was a high school junior. Like her, you challenged me to do better. I thank you sincerely for that. I will always remember you. I am seriously thinking of minoring in Literature. I hope that my plans won't remain mere plans. Watch out for me, Sir; I'll be back! :)
And since I've mentioned Sir Exie, M04, you deserve a special mention as well. It's kind of late now, and I fear that I'm rambling too much. But anyway, thank you, M04, thank you for those times we spent together. The first few meetings we had left me feeling out of place. "Am I supposed to be here? I am not as smart as they are," I thought. But eventually, I found my place in M04, and now I have no regrets about being a part of this class. Never have I seen a class this brilliant, a class that embraces diversity. I love you all for your brilliance, for the interesting answers and insights that you share in class, for being wonderful groupmates (I love working with M04 people when it comes to projects), for being nice (I think that you are all nice people. Admittedly I feared that some of you would have superiority complexes, but I've never encountered anyone in M04 who behaved that way.). Although I am not close with most of you (close as in chummy - think barkada and all that), I think of most of you as friends. I hope I'm not being the "feeling-close-pero-hindi-naman" type when I say this. But I say so because I can approach any of your randomly during those little breaks we have in between English and Lit, without feeling like I'm "disturbing the universe" or being creepy by approaching you for no reason. But most of all, I love you, M04, for appreciating and embracing diversity. Whether it's accepting differing opinions (while challenging them in a civil, peaceful manner) or finding someone else's quirks interesting, M04 is all about diversity. I mean, we've got a philatelist, a stylophile, bookworms, awesome musicians... everyone seems interesting in his or her own right. In M04, I never felt guilty for being weirder or nerdier or more introverted than others, and that's because everyone seems to be in touch with his or her "inner nerd" (please take this as a compliment, as I think that there's nothing wrong with being nerdier than others). So what if so-and-so collects stamps or fountain pens? M04 sees nothing wrong with that. Thank you so much for the diversity you promoted, everyone. I think this was the main reason why I found my place in M04. "The art of losing" is actually hard to master, because I'm going to miss you. It makes me sad that you are actually my last English and Lit class ever (unless I take a minor). Next year, this class that I looked forward to will be no more. Gone. Replaced by hellish, boring, rigid Accounting. Boo. M04, you made me look forward to school, and now, like Patty, I'm heartbroken that I won't be taking classes with most of you next year. Still, thank you for being the wonderful classmates that you are. I hope we can get together sometime.
Aside from M04, I have to thank some of my blockmates over at P1! Um, I'm sorry, but I don't seem to have much to say, because *eep* the sad truth is that I am not that close to most of you. It seems that we only talk about general things and homework. Sadly, we do not seem to bond that much. I guess my introverted nature does alienate me from the rest of you. It also doesn't help that we had different classes, especially during the first semester. Nevertheless, you guys strike me as one amusing and energetic bunch. I sincerely hope to know more of you guys next year. After all, we'll be spending more classes together.
Lastly, a big, big, big word of thanks to my old friends and some of my batchmates! Thank you for not losing touch with me, especially to Richmond, Leslie, Andria and Jasmine for being the super-great friends that you are! Richie, Leslie, I enjoyed that one time we hung out at Leslie's place and watched funny videos on YouTube. You guys are wonderful friends and I'm glad to have known you. Thank you to those batchmates of mine who have grown a bit closer to me. It's all thanks to us being together in the same school. Leslie, I feel our friendship has grown stronger. Jhenel, we weren't close before, but since you always carpool with me, we've been talking more lately. (Sorry for being a pathetic conversationalist.) :) We will surely become closer next school year! Zhandra, Rachelle, Nicole, Sasy, and several others: it also seems that we've been talking more! Yay! :) Now I appreciate my Judenite friends more than ever, haha.
So that's it, I guess. In general, I'm thankful for the school year that was. Like any other year, it was (duh!) full of ups and downs. Sometimes I felt like the downs outnumbered the ups, but these people mentioned above helped me get through and gave me reasons to look forward to going to school.
I hope I meet these people again next year. (Well, I'll surely meet some of them.) :) For now, I'm going to enjoy my summer break! :)