Honor and Excellence

I had just finished my bloody losing battle with Chem exams yesterday, and tomorrow I shall face the wrath of Physics.

Oh the seemingly never-ending stream of exams we all dread because we all know we didn't study well or that even if we did, well, we aren't prepared enough for it.

But, well, we do still have dreams that we want to achieve, and we all struggle to keep that in mind as we go about our normal routine of learning and (almost quite immediately) unlearning lessons, of plugging values and plotting graphs, of counting living things under the microscope, that despite the seemingly endless "suffering" we have we hope to see something that can help us make a connection between learning all these things and living life. We all do seem to be so focused on getting that "matamis na tres" that we tend to forget that come employment, lives may be at your own hands and there will be no one to tell you that passing or 'just winging" it is enough.

I do admit that I myself am guilty of this immature "learning and unlearning" process. Learn the night before exams, forget it the next. Hell, I am even guilty of cram studying right now. But somehow I do hope that we all find a silver lining that we can hold on to as we go on this dreaded "hell weeks". Yes, I do admit I am guilty of being easily disheartened on the subject if I could not understand the professor well. And as of the moment, I am trying to recall what it was like to feel interested in a subject while studying. There have been a lot of subjects that I have loved when I first met it but then hated it in the long run as I reached college. However, as a scholar, we have the duty to understand the complexity of everything. We need to have more and more patience in dealing with our "struggles". As my father had put it, "Ilang years of suffering lang yan. If you do well enough, you'll be perfectly fine after".

I salute those professors who manage to pique the interest of their students, even if it's difficult and dubbed as "boring" by many. You guys are amazing to have been able to explain such complex and sometimes quite abstract ideas and explain it in such simpler terms. As a student who has experienced having that inquisitive phase that soon faded away because of terror profs and incomprehensible teachers, I highly appreciate you guys. The world clearly needs more of you.

As students, we must all learn to be patient with what we are studying. Honor and Excellence - these are the values that our university values most. Honor, that in everything we do we are honestly doing our best, and excellence, that in doing our best we may harvest what we sow. Indeed, we are stuDYING, but you can't always enjoy the sunshine without a little rain.

Just my two cents (aka self-PEP talk as I study).

Oh well.

Of Perished Dreams and Regrets

It's that time when the only thing you could think about is getting to college, with an optimistic view on how you will ideally handle things and take in the stress of being a college student pursuing your dream career, when you are most vulnerable in making rash decisions. Most high school seniors would only think about the graduation parties they will be attending, but the looming fork in the road where you have to decide which way to go will soon start to come haunting you. Being a graduating high school student has a lot of pressure, I know. I've been one before.

Maybe it was my mistake, that right now I weep about why I am currently unable to pursue my dream career. It has been my childhood dream to become an architect, and today it still remains in my heart as my first love. However, life has seem to challenge me harder than usual, it seems.

Yes, I had gotten on my dream school, which is none other than the University of the Philippines - Diliman. But I didn't get what I wanted. You see, BS Architecture in UP Diliman is a quota course, and unfortunately, I didn't make the cut. I was, however, waitlisted on the course. My second choice of career was BS Business Administration, but being a Pisay scholar, it is technically illegal for me to do so, despite it being the most interesting thing next to architecture that I wanted to take up.

What I wrote as a second choice in my UPCAT form was BS Clothing Technology, and I know not many of you may have heard of it nor appreciate it, but hey, not everything about it is fashion design. I liked the cloth 'engineering' aspect of it.

DOST results came in, and for a month I was in a state of euphoria for having passed one of the alleged most difficult exams of your high school life. To be honest, though, I was happy for having passed despite being a mediocre student and watched as the others who excelled in my class try to casually shrug off not having passed that exam. I should feel bad, I know. But for a while I felt that I was smart afterall. Being always in the company of people who are smarter than you can sometimes make you feel like a dumb person despite them not treating you so. Might be inferiority complex, might be not.

There were downsides to passing that, though. My parents could hardly afford sending a third child to college with only my father working for the family, so the scholarship was welcomed with open arms and bright smiles as the opportunity of having my tuition waved came. The problem was, though, that neither Architecture nor Clothing Technology was supported by the said scholarship (I find it peculiar that the approved courses for Pisay graduates and for DOST science courses are different despite both being drafted by the same institution). I had to choose another course with an open slot that is catered by the scholarship, and I was pressured into taking up BS Food Technology.

Don't get me wrong, FoodTech is an amazing study. In fact, it is one of the most interesting courses offered in UPD (not saying the engineering courses aren't also interesting). I just simply couldn't let go of my childhood dream.

Four months passed after the acad shift was impemented (school starts on August now), and all the lessons I learned in high school went down the drain as even the simple task of studying elapsed my mind. I blame it on me becoming a couch potato for a whole 4 months.

When school started, I had been thinking if I made the right choice into succumbing into the pressure. Was it the right choice to put finances over my dreams? Or should I have fought for my dream, no matter how hard it is? These questions haunted me for the entire semester, and I ended up garnering a grade of 4.00 in the infamous Math 17 because these questions haunted me on those quiet hours when I am studying while my roommate sleeps peacefully in the adjacent bed.

I do admit that the subject was difficult for me, and it made me question my credibility of being a Pisay graduate. Yes, people who had accidentally seen my blue books would ask: taga-Pisay ka ba talaga? I also lacked focus, mainly because I joined multiple organizations as a way of trying to escape from my reality. But I also believe I could have made it if only I were at peace with the path I am currently taking.

Right now, I regret not being able to think thoroughly on my decisions before I enrolled. I could have inquired if there were slots in architecture. I could have asked for other scholarships. I could have begged my parents to let me take my dream course despite it being difficult and expensive. But no, I didn't do any of this. What the hell was I thinking?

Right now, I am ranting these all off to get it all out of my chest as I study for the pass-or-die removals exams I will be taking for math 17 this coming Monday, and I had just spent a good solid 30 minutes ranting this all of on a newly created blog. If I fail the exams, then I can kiss my dream career goodbye as I cannot shift into the course I want if I have a failing mark. For the past few months I have been eating anxiety for breakfast, insecurity for lunch, and a brew of angst, fear, frustration, and tears for dinner.

I really really really do want to be in architecture. Yep, I want it that bad.

The lesson I learned, though, is that in life you have to carefully think through your choices no matter how trivial or common sensical it may seem, because one day you might regret it deeply in the future. I am not saying I am ungrateful to the Department of Science and Technology for the scholarship they bestowed upon me, but I really wish they could have included architecture in their list of courses. So, to all high school seniors out there, think really hard about what you really want to do in life, because it's a decision you can't easily change.

Now I am here again, trying to wipe the tears off my cheeks as I write this blog and feel the anxiety and tension while I review for my upcoming exams. I do hope that I pass, though. If not, then might as well kiss my ideal future goodbye. I know I am probably just overthinking things and that maybe God had this planned for me or that I may be even more successful on my current track than on my dream track or some other reason I do not understand. But well, as a good friend likes to say, "Bahala na si Batman"

Wish me luck.