Bits & Bites

Happy Sunday!! :)) It's 3:00 in the morning, and while everybody else is asleep, I'm trying to put some effort in recalling some memories of the entire week, thanks to Joice who always leads me to different blogs, including this blog, Piece of Cake. Piece of Mind. So with that a list of highlights of my week comes next:

"Banyo" - Final video production

1. I hosted the prom of our Junior and Senior high school students last Friday. It was a bit nostalgic. :') Didn't have much time to prepare for it,just grabbed my sister's super mini-skirt dress I found in the closet. A little make-up and a pony-tailed hair, with my screaming RED lips, and that's it! :D I like being simple,so the look might have not suited the occasion that much, but it did suit my personality well. :)

2. That;s just outside our house; the sun is STILL shining brightly when I got home! Seldom does it happens these days that I get home early, and was very happy not to need to turn on the headlight of my motorbike while driving home. :))

3. After a quite stressful week, time for a Friday night try-a-new-restaurant dinner! :)) It was Cafe Rene along the main road of Nasugbu. Ordered Sea-food pasta in white sauce and a bottomless CalamaTea (Calamansi + Tea-don't have a picture of it though). I don't eat that much for dinner. :)

4. My sister's on her 3rd month of pregnancy for her first baby (who also happens to be the first niece/nephew in the family) and everyone's just soooo excited!!! My brother-in-law just bought the first set of baby stuff - bottles and pacifiers! :))

5. Classes in graduate school is down to its last week. Deadlines and exams are coming. I shot a video for one of my classes (Design and Production of Audio Visual Development Communication Materials) as a final assignment. Thanks to my wonderful friend who agreed to be my model for the video. :)

 

6. My sister Joy came home before she leaves for Singapore next week, so we spent time together eating goto, and streetfood, and halo-halo, and chatting and chatting and chatting and more more chatting! :))

7. Just finished the first installment of Percy Jackson series. Been busy these days, and couldn't read that much. Happy to sit down (lie down) the whole night reading the book. 4 more to go! :))

So that's it,it has been (and really,almost always) a wonderful week!! :)) Hope you guys also do. :)

The Prince

Chapter 17 of Niccolo Machiavelli's book, The Prince poses the question "Is it better to be loved or to be feared?". Of course, there should be a balance of the two, if possible. But reality check, it's just so difficult to actually be loved and feared at the same time, with the right amount of love and right amount of fear to receive. I encountered Michiavelli and The Prince in my SocSci II class in college and I didn't think then that this question will be of importance to me now. I tried to give myself an answer when one of my students asked me once, "Ma'am bakit po hindi kayo maging mahigpit?" I gave her the safest answer I could give, a smile. :) But afterwards I tried to reflect on her question and it led me to the question in The Prince.

On my first year of teaching, I was still adjusting, adapting to the totally different world I entered. teaching more or less 50 Filipino college students per class is not the same as teaching one to two Korean elementary and high school teenagers at a time; and teaching in a classroom set up in a university in the province is not the same as teaching in a bedroom or living room in a comfortable house in Manila. I learned to be patient because of my Korean students. I learned to be lenient as well. And both, I applied in my classroom. I guess I was trying to be as nice as possible to my students trying to give them a friendly and comfortable environment when I'm around. Besides, we were almost of the same ages (I was just 20 then) so i couldn't really be as strict as most professors were. Late papers, it's okay. Absences, it's okay. 2nd chance, okay. 3rd chance, okay. 4th chance, okay. Nth chance. Ugh, okay. My students and I were like friends, brothers, sisters, family. We cracked jokes around, we made fun of each other, they told me their problems. We were very comfortable with each other. I was sooo lenient because of this kind of relationship we had. I loved them, and they loved me I guess.

But they did not fear me, I know.

I never got mad in class. When they're too noisy, I just keep quiet and when they had finished talking I just smiled and continued the discussion. When they submitted late papers, "Hmmm. Next time,ha." And even for the nth time, I still give them that reaction, then accept their papers afterwards. I just couldn't say NO.

The question of my student had a follow-up: "Ma'am, bakit po hindi kayo maging mahigpit? Para po kasing di na kayo sinusunod ng mga studyante nyo." THAT really bothered me.

Am I really too lenient that my students think that they can do anything they want because they know I won't get mad at them? Are they setting aside my requirements and doing other subjects' first because they know I will understand them and accept late submissions? Am I being too nice, and being loved to the point that my students are being very comfortable already? Am I happy and satisfied  being loved ... but not feared at all?

The following year I tried something else. The first few Yes's I tried to avoid giving out broke my heart. The first few NOs I had to say weren't as strongly said as I wanted them to be. But I had to be firm. I had to be strict. I had to be feared. So I tried to be firm with all the NOs I had to give.

Now I give considerate NOs, a lot of them. I still give a second chance, but not a third (unless of course the student deserves it). I still accept late papers, only if the reason is valid and acceptable, and HONEST, but just once. I still keep quiet when they are very noisy, but with a look saying, "Mag-ingay lang kayo,ewan ko lang kung magugustuhan nyo ang mangyayari (I don't mean anything on than,it's just the facial expression. Hehe)". I still smile, but still say NO.

Of course I don't say no for nothing. It's like choosing between pathos and logos, then trying to focus on the logos (specially that I'm a girl, and I tend to be too emotional at times; I couldn't be strict before because I always felt pity). Now I think my students think I'm strict. but I would want to think that I am considerably strict. They know the consequences of their actions. No paper, no grade. No exam because of laziness to look for their schedule, no special exam for them. Absent for unacceptable reason, grade deduction. Lame excuses - a big NO. Somehow, I am "feared". And it pays off. Because they submit their papers on time after the first warning, because now they exert effort to check their schedules for major exams, and inform me prior the exam for any conflicts, because they don't exceed to the maximum number of allowable absences, because they say sorry after I say no. It pays off because I know, I see, that THEY LEARN.

To be feared doesn't mean my students will face me with shaking knees and sweating palms, or sweating everything. It's just an enough amount of fear, with enough amount of love, which I think led to enough amount of respect, and I am really happy with that.

B day after V day

This is not a usual Valentine post like everyone else’s. In fact, I don’t celebrate Valentine’s. After all, it is just a “day”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not celebrating it not because I’m bitter that I’m single. (I soooo love being single).  It just so happened that it has always been an ordinary day in my life. But the days before and after it are not. The 13^th and the 15^th are always special. The former is my Dad’s birthday, and the latter is a day my friends and I started celebrating around five years ago.

Benjamin Benson Logronio. Benson. 

It’s Benson’s day.

Joicee had the most creative letter that day. :))

It’s a simple story of a man who had his heart broken on a Valentine’s day. And since we, (Cindy, Jelly, Joicee, Le, Mikol, Tasha) also didn’t find the Vday a super duper extra special day (plus the fact that we were all single that time, I think), we all decided to celebrate the day after, and call it Benson’s day. :)

We prepared simple stuff to express our love for everyone. They were mostly letters, short but sweet ones, written on a yellow paper, a piece of paper detached from a notebook, a one-half-crosswise stationery, and a special paper which I don’t know the name. But Kuya Benson’s was different. Though he had a letter, written on a brown paper (one letter generally for everybody), his love for us was expressed through toasted breads, sautéed sardines, butter (aka margarine) – a surprise breakfast very early in the morning that woke all of us up with a smile and tears in our eyes. It was love.

Unfortunately, Friendster is not so friendly to let me keep the photos of the letter, the food, and everything on that day. Well, this is the best I got:

Benson's letter

 The years that followed, we would fill our house with cut out of hearts. . .

Hearts,hearts,and more hearts :)

. . . and let it stay there for the rest of the year (I don't know if it was symbolic of our love for each other or we're really just too lazy to clean them up. :D)

We didn't get to celebrate that day together after college,but for sure, we'll have the opportunity to be together again to celebrate Benson's day. :))

Valentino

O,yes,13 years.

My father left us 13 years ago (January 29,1999) I just turned 10, and my baby sister was just two months then.I did not see him in his funeral,we weren't there. We wanted to but we couldn't. Well, we were not allowed to.


I'm an illegitimate child. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not proud of it either. The very reason why a lot of things were different as I was growing up. He was with us on Saturdays and Sundays. In Manila for the rest of the week. He was managing a family business there. He never attended any school event, family day, recognition day,graduation day. Never.

I knew then that we were his 'second family' - a toned down term I guess for an illegitimate family (if there's even a term). These days, it may not be a big deal, but when I was young it was, and it's even a bigger deal for a traditional conservative typical Chinese family. He was a Chinese.

Papa @ 16

I never knew any of my cousins or Uncles and Aunties on Papa's side (not until he passed away). O,well,we're not the legal family anyway.

My half-sisters came to our house a couple of times to visit us. I knew they were my sisters but I didn't understand that much why we weren't living together, or why they were almost as old as my mom. And I didn't understand why we always had to wear our best clothes and prepare a poem to recite or a dance number when they visited. We just did. After two, three, or four visits, I didn't see them again.

People around would try to pretend not to talk about my family, but I knew they did. It's from them where I learned the words kabit, and anak sa labas in the first place. Yes,they called my mom kabit and they called us anak sa labas. Well, so what.

So Papa passed away,and we were informed two days after. We went to Manila to see him. But we went back home immediately after Papa's friend tried to 'negotiate' with his legal family. The negotiation failed. No funeral attended. No 'last time to see Papa'. We went back home,just like that.

My last memory of him was on my birthday (January 1,1999), that wasn't the last time I saw him, but that's the last memory I have with him. My birthday has always been special. It's New Year and everybody's always present. He sang me a happy birthday, gave me a hundred peso as a gift. That's it. He carried my baby sister (always), something he never did to Ate Anna,Cathy,Joy or me,for, according to Mama,he was afraid that he might drop us anytime. We were fragile. And he was afraid to hurt us. But Shobe (youngest girl in the family) was an exception. He was still afraid maybe, but I guess he knew he should seize the moment.

It was difficult for me to let go. I was close to him, I was his Jr. (Valentino Go, Jr. if I were a boy,thus,my name Valerie). Years and years I was hoping anytime he would come home, just like he always did. I would wait for him outside our house hoping that everything wasn't true. Years and years but no Papa came home. He's gone.

I would write him letters, always. He became my diary. All the thoughts, happenings, everything about me and my family, I tell him. As if he's just abroad and I can just send him the letters anytime. I just couldn't let go.

If I wrote this post three years ago, I was probably already in tears. But I have moved on, finally, after 10 years. :)

A friend once told me about his thoughts on life's drama - staying away from others' and not making your own. It was a short conversation, but it was like a stone thrown to my head saying, "He's right." (Thanks,friend. :D)

It's been 13 years and life has been tough without him. But life is still life. I love him and I will miss him forever.

Go Family - 1993 (Shobe's still in the making. :D)