Procrastination feels sooooo good.

Muning, my study buddy

I am currently hating cell biology, because despite my fascination for processes and colorful textbook diagrams, I have zero background on biochemistry - the classes were early in the morning, and well, I'm like Muning here until around eleven am (a comfortable bed and Baguio City could only bring doom to a student).

I get to smile once in a while, too.

Welcoming the 40th Sorority Anniversary and an e-mail (finally) from the UPD IB's Deputy Director for Academic Affairs. A good morning, indeed.

Will probably spend the next five days studying for the diagnostic exam (cell biology, microbiology, genetics, physiology, developmental biology, taxonomy, and ecology). Wish me luck!

"When I grow up, I want to be a..."

photo source

Now that I am facing the ultimate test called life, I thank my teachers. Happy World Teacher's Day, Ma'am/Sir!

Post Grad: yup, that's about it.

For the past few months, I've been having an existential crisis. Being a graduate of the country's premiere state university is crazy enough, but having a lifetime of ideals and dreams and promise of greatness is another story.

Well, life is pretty simple when you are eight. You go to school, thinking that by learning how to multiply irregular fractions, you would have power enough to get through life. That proper spelling and grammar would be the key to landing the perfect job that will feed your perfect family. That understanding the life cycle of a butterfly means happiness and contentment in your entire adult life.

Then you reach twenty. You are a recent college graduate, unemployed, and living under your parents' roof. Your sanity is under the mercy of your mother's constant nagging, your self-worth is daunted by your father's unspoken yet even deadlier expectations, and your self-respect is melting away with your younger sibling's opinion of what you do. You have planned the next five years of your life perfectly when you made the choice of what to major in, but suddenly, things are not going as you have expected. Suddenly, that college degree is no match to what you have before you - life.

Post Grad was dead on. You oversell yourself to compensate for your lack of job experience (suddenly innovative was visionary, active was driven, and outgoing was enthusiastic). You detest the fact that everyone was already moving on with their lives, doing something productive and admirable and definite, while you are left behind. Suddenly, you are not so unique and brilliant anymore, everybody else is, too.

Well, the movie was not of any help to my existential crisis, as (spoiler alert) its concept of a happy ending was to quit the job of your dreams to move to a new city with your boyfriend. I think the ending was a delusional hopefulness, something I could never employ in my life for I live in a country bearing disappointments such as an education system that is crumbling down by the hour, a job market that gags you with call center agent positions, and a government already too rotten to expect anything from, to name a few.

But then again, life throws in an occasional ray of sunshine in its constant field of storms. And that would be my next story.

Ian Carandang on Education

Education. Quality, non-sectarian Education to the world’s children to be precise. It gives us higher standards in choosing our leaders, where we will no longer settle for the same old politicians but want for true, visionary leadership. It teaches us that taking care of the environment is not an optional scenario. It teaches us that using books written 2,000 years ago to justify bigotry, intolerance and a distrust of science is ridiculous; that we have more that unites us than separates us. Education gives people the tools and the confidence to rise up and attain their full potential. A good education is everything to a young mind, no matter what country or situation you are in.

(source: Anik-Anik Love by Mitch Mauricio)

On Education Budget Cuts: Let's Do Something.

If you are a student of the University of the Philippines, especially if your student number begins with an "07-", you most probably have heard about the Tuition and Other Fees Increase, or ToFI, back in 2007. It was UP’s decision to increase its fees by 300 per cent. The increase, the university say, is inevitable because the government no longer provides enough subsidy for the university to maintain the quality of education it provides.

Four years later, the government decides to perform an education budget cut for state universities and colleges. And a few months after that decision, Philippine universities drop out of the top 300 world universities ranking.

Quality and accessible education are the very reasons for the existence of state universities. Both elements though, seem to be disappearing as we look upon the recent status of higher education in the country. The government indeed is bombarded with enough problems and issues, much like the regular youth scrambling towards life for learning and purpose. The Philippine education system crisis is undeniably saddening at the very least, often infuriating, and sometimes downright depressing. But perhaps there is something that you and I could do.

Perhaps we could donate books, to overcome intellectual hunger. Perhaps we could participate in building schools, to strengthen the foundations of learning. Or perhaps we could spread awareness, to kill the apathy surrounding most of the best-educated in our country.

Let’s do something.