"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
- J.D. Salinger (1919-2010), The Catcher in the Rye
---
The Catcher in the Rye, incidentally, is the best ten peso book i ever bought from Book Sale, or anywhere else, for that matter. It was an old Bantam paperback edition with a solid maroon cover with lemon yellow type. It was borrowed and was, unfortunately, never returned.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Higher Learning
At about this time of the year 19 years ago, I and six other people came to school on an ordinary day and found our names posted on one of the bulletin boards along the walk. We passed the UPCAT. The letters arrived at home a few days later.
I recalled that day because last week, my first godchild did not find her name on the list. That list, I presume, is still posted on the bulletin boards of the old "alma meyter," even though UP has already been posting the results on the Web for years now. Ramon Magsaysay HS in Cubao is still posting their list on their wall facing EDSA. That alone gives me enough reason to believe that every other high school in the country is doing the same thing.
It is a fact that it is statistically difficult to get into that list. While high school grades are considered in the selection process, having high grades does not at all guarantee admission into UP. Of the seven of us who made it, only two graduated with honors, prompting one of my classmates who did not make the list, but graduated with honors, to tell to no one in particular that day, that he should have chosen another campus. One of my friends who chose UPLB as his first choice could only snicker. He later met his wife in Elbi, and to make a long story short, they made me a godfather a few years later.
While admission into the premier state university of the country is source of pride for all of us who were lucky enough to make it, it does not mean the end of the world for the others who did not. If anything, I can guarantee that they will be less arrogant than the stereotypical UP student. I myself turned down my slot in UP 19 years ago to attend another school, and it turned out rather well for me (except for the arrogance part - that other school was apparently good at churning out arrogant dicks as well). It was so good, in fact, that 10 years after finishing college in that small liberal arts school in QC, I passed the LAE and was admitted to UP Law. I figured that that would settle, once and for all, all lingering questions in my head about what would have been if I stayed at UP, just like six of my friends. But, that's another story.
While I have no doubt in my mind that she will excel in whatever it is that she chooses to do in the next four years of her life, I want to warn her that, chances are, she will be experiencing the most wonderful moments of her life within the next four years, and she must not be carried away. She will also face her biggest problems and see the best and worst in people. During those moments, it is very likely, that she will be on her own. She must not be overwhelmed by all the new things that she would have to face and she must not lose sight of what she came there for in the first place.
It is, nevertheless, fortunate that she is attending college away from home at this time and age. Unlike her parents and I, she does not have to lug coins with her and fall in line to use the only working PLDT pay phone in the dorm (or campus) to call home. She will have the luxury of a relatively cheap Internet connection to send email and to chat. She can choose to spend her free time in any of the God-knows-how-many malls around the city. She does not have to go to SM City North EDSA every time to catch the last full show.
She will have the best years of her life. She only needs to make sure that she does not have too good a time while at it.
I recalled that day because last week, my first godchild did not find her name on the list. That list, I presume, is still posted on the bulletin boards of the old "alma meyter," even though UP has already been posting the results on the Web for years now. Ramon Magsaysay HS in Cubao is still posting their list on their wall facing EDSA. That alone gives me enough reason to believe that every other high school in the country is doing the same thing.
It is a fact that it is statistically difficult to get into that list. While high school grades are considered in the selection process, having high grades does not at all guarantee admission into UP. Of the seven of us who made it, only two graduated with honors, prompting one of my classmates who did not make the list, but graduated with honors, to tell to no one in particular that day, that he should have chosen another campus. One of my friends who chose UPLB as his first choice could only snicker. He later met his wife in Elbi, and to make a long story short, they made me a godfather a few years later.
While admission into the premier state university of the country is source of pride for all of us who were lucky enough to make it, it does not mean the end of the world for the others who did not. If anything, I can guarantee that they will be less arrogant than the stereotypical UP student. I myself turned down my slot in UP 19 years ago to attend another school, and it turned out rather well for me (except for the arrogance part - that other school was apparently good at churning out arrogant dicks as well). It was so good, in fact, that 10 years after finishing college in that small liberal arts school in QC, I passed the LAE and was admitted to UP Law. I figured that that would settle, once and for all, all lingering questions in my head about what would have been if I stayed at UP, just like six of my friends. But, that's another story.
While I have no doubt in my mind that she will excel in whatever it is that she chooses to do in the next four years of her life, I want to warn her that, chances are, she will be experiencing the most wonderful moments of her life within the next four years, and she must not be carried away. She will also face her biggest problems and see the best and worst in people. During those moments, it is very likely, that she will be on her own. She must not be overwhelmed by all the new things that she would have to face and she must not lose sight of what she came there for in the first place.
It is, nevertheless, fortunate that she is attending college away from home at this time and age. Unlike her parents and I, she does not have to lug coins with her and fall in line to use the only working PLDT pay phone in the dorm (or campus) to call home. She will have the luxury of a relatively cheap Internet connection to send email and to chat. She can choose to spend her free time in any of the God-knows-how-many malls around the city. She does not have to go to SM City North EDSA every time to catch the last full show.
She will have the best years of her life. She only needs to make sure that she does not have too good a time while at it.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Homestretch
I have started to count the Fridays and Saturdays off the calendar. Hopefully, in a few more weeks, I can already see the so-called light at the end of this cursed tunnel. It is so close, you can almost taste it.
I have been away from college for more than 10 years now, and I can still recall, with fondness, my days and nights there. Right now, I think I will leave this place (Hopefully. Soon.) with no fondness, except for the remarkable people who made all those years a little bit more tolerable. Of course, things are significantly different in college, the most significant difference being in college, the only thing I had to do was to go to class and pass. That is it. Everything else took care of itself.
(One other thing, is that I don't think my professors in college really went out of their way to really inflict moral damages upon my person. But, of course, one can also argue that it is the method at work.)
Anyway, I have finally started working on the paper. Hopefully, I will be able to finish it on time. I have been religiously attending the elective subject, and so far, it looks like that's all I have to do to get out of it in one piece. The one remaining major subject was supposed to be a 3-unit subject, and it was, until the professor decided that we are not suffering enough, so we now all go to class one hour earlier. "Room 1408," of course, is still one of the seven portals to hell.
By the end of March, I would have already submitted an ejectment case for decision and obtained a final settlement of an award from the NLRC, in a case that has dragged on since my classmates were still in grade school. Hopefully, I would also be able to ask a court to reset a hearing in a case for slander. To May.
Speaking of "Room 1408," is it just me or the old hags just decided to be a wee bit more maniacal? Look, I have been working for more than 14 years and I already had four different jobs in two different countries during that span. I have never, ever, seen a working environment worse than this hellhole pretending to be an office. And that is putting it mildly.
Anyway, I hope everything goes as planned. My sanity cannot afford to stay in that place one day longer than I have to. Besides, I already paid my old college more money for a five-month course, than I ever had in all my four previous years there, combined.
And it is non-refundable.
I have been away from college for more than 10 years now, and I can still recall, with fondness, my days and nights there. Right now, I think I will leave this place (Hopefully. Soon.) with no fondness, except for the remarkable people who made all those years a little bit more tolerable. Of course, things are significantly different in college, the most significant difference being in college, the only thing I had to do was to go to class and pass. That is it. Everything else took care of itself.
(One other thing, is that I don't think my professors in college really went out of their way to really inflict moral damages upon my person. But, of course, one can also argue that it is the method at work.)
Anyway, I have finally started working on the paper. Hopefully, I will be able to finish it on time. I have been religiously attending the elective subject, and so far, it looks like that's all I have to do to get out of it in one piece. The one remaining major subject was supposed to be a 3-unit subject, and it was, until the professor decided that we are not suffering enough, so we now all go to class one hour earlier. "Room 1408," of course, is still one of the seven portals to hell.
By the end of March, I would have already submitted an ejectment case for decision and obtained a final settlement of an award from the NLRC, in a case that has dragged on since my classmates were still in grade school. Hopefully, I would also be able to ask a court to reset a hearing in a case for slander. To May.
Speaking of "Room 1408," is it just me or the old hags just decided to be a wee bit more maniacal? Look, I have been working for more than 14 years and I already had four different jobs in two different countries during that span. I have never, ever, seen a working environment worse than this hellhole pretending to be an office. And that is putting it mildly.
Anyway, I hope everything goes as planned. My sanity cannot afford to stay in that place one day longer than I have to. Besides, I already paid my old college more money for a five-month course, than I ever had in all my four previous years there, combined.
And it is non-refundable.
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