Menthol-Guy

Since Thursday I’ve been drinking every night. I get by with a beer each night (though with exceptions–Saturday and Sunday I drank hardcore drinks). It helps you clear things, gives you the heat you need in a summer night or the heat a simple jack-off can give you.

I’m quite sleepy.

I acknowledge these kinds of things when I’m quite tipsy:

1. I’m an introvert no matter how I deal with people. Even the personality test we took in my Psychology class told me I am an introvert.
2. I think of stories to write, but what sucks is that the morning after, I completely forget about that something (which I would always believe is something magnificent).
3. I think of how unintellectual my mind goes when it comes to handling I-don’t-really-know-what, specifically. Critical papers? Rewriting stories? Tolerating the mush of people? Korean fucked-ups throwing garbage across you as if you’re a streetlamp?
4. With Koreans I have empirical bases. Some Korean guys here in the university play soccer and these boys are just fucking braggarts. They threw garbage as if Filipinos were vassals or something. It’s disgusting, these chinks of a nation (and I’m sorry for Super Junior fans–really, I’m not generalizing). There’s another instance at Jolibee when two Korean guys were hissing at the waiter like it was fine fucking dining. It was absolutely unnerving the way these Korean guys (what Asians!) get around Filipinos like we’re filth.
5. I guess I’m quite incoherent when I wrote “chinks of a nation” but I guess you guys understand that?
6. When I reread number four I thought I misspelled Jolibee.
7. It’s funny how people make an effort to say goodbye to people who says they’re about to go because they want people to say goodbye to them. Do they really have to say they’re going to get something decent before they go? It’s better if you–nah, it’s too mushy.
8. I have this hunch I’ll be late tomorrow for my interview at the U.S. Embassy for my VISA renewal. This hunch is getting more solid with my tardy records for the past, uhh, ten years. (I started getting late when I was in fourth grade; I even bribed my teacher that my sister would make a cake for her; I lied to her and told her we have this bakeshop named Blue Ribbon.)
9. Sarcastic smiles and fake hellos. Oh my god, Hale.
10. I haven’t written my critical paper due Wednesday, entitled “A Critical Analysis of Haruki Murakami’s Tony Takitani (in both text and film media): Post-Colonialism Hybridity”. How cool does that sound.

I’m trying my very best to find the Publish button.

I am not that political, but the University has taught me not to be apathetic, especially in campus issues. I don’t post anything political in this blog, nor do I write anything political, so in this post I humbly ask your patience if ever my political views are incoherent or incorrect.

A few weeks ago rumors have started to swarm the campus that by next semester, the large class policy will be implemented on all RGEP courses (History, Psychology, Philosophy, College Writing, College English, Speech Communication, among other subjects related to the Humanities and the Social Sciences). If my facts serve me right, the policy states that every class must have at least 160 students all flocked in a single class. Imagine a school of sardines all packed in a single can.

Taking Math11

I took Math11 (College Algebra) when I was a freshman, and though I very much welcome my weakness in Mathematics, I have to admit that its being a large class also was a factor with my performance. The usual joke back then is when my classmates would ask my class standing, I tell them nakaupo na nga ang class standing ko eh, which is way below the passing grade.

Math11 is a three-unit course: a one-hour lecture twice a week and a one-hour recitation class once a week. One of my biggest problems is my lecture class (and, let my problems in that semester be in a pie chart, three-fourths of it I shall label Math11), especially my professor, since he skims his Powerpoint slides and assume that every goddamn student in the lecture hall knows what he’s talking about. He used to say, “oh, you guys know this way back in High School” as if everyone of us came straight from a Science High School. We used to discuss two to three topics in forty-five minutes; when we’re lucky he would solve two hardcore problems on the whiteboard–students at the farthest corners of the classroom couldn’t see his solutions.

So every time I go to that lecture hall, when I was a freshman, I know I’m failing. I’m still listening, still writing notes as prolific as with my other subjects, but I think no matter how thick your notes are in Math, it’s useless if you don’t understand the basics. I drag my feet to that subject (sometimes I skip the class, especially after knowing my class standing). Every time I receive my quizzes, it’s a zero. I don’t even understand factoring, dammit.

I asked help from my blockmate who’s performing very well in the subject, but she’s not that much of an effective tutor, though I appreciated her effort. She says “factor this then solve this” like it’s the most natural thing to do. I texted another tutor, a Civil Engineering freshman, but it turns out that he’s quite of a nutcrack (no offense to him, but we argued about the simplest things in life–heck, we didn’t even meet once).

In the recitation class my professor has this penchant for filling the blackboard with solutions. We spend two yellow pads for forty-five minutes, all of those are solutions, solutions, solutions. In the last few months my blockmate and I just stare at the blank yellow pad paper; you’re supposed to know what you did in the lecture class, because in the recitation class we only do exercises.

It’s hopeless, I used to say with a sigh. It’s a painful thing to know that my parents would know about my 5.0 at my first semester in UP (though again, my parents understand–especially my Dad; he got a 3.0 in his Math11 in Diliman).

In a large lecture class, I couldn’t ask questions. When my lecture professor would ask us if we have any questions, I’m sometimes tempted to raise my hand, but the mere imagination of all those 160 students looking at me and asking for a handicapped explanation is very embarrassing.

Half of the class failed the class (as what I’ve heard), including me. My professor’s name became known out of that incident; his name is just so notorious when someone asks me about my professor in Math11 they’d say, kaya naman pala.

I took Math11 again after three semesters out of fear of going back to the perimeters of Math building (until now I hate going there). I passed it because the finals exam (of course I wasn’t exempted) was almost exactly the same with the Pre-Finals. I got a grade of 3.0.

What I think

Large classes can be a very practical way of cost-cutting, but the fact that ever since our batch came it had a 300% increase, why cost-cut? Is the Tuition and Other Fee Increase not enough to cater both quality education and buying new facilities, renovating buildings?

I am after the implementation of large classes in Humanities and Social Science subjects, considering the nature of these subjects, which needs a student-professor interaction, and not just mere spoonfeeding of lessons and handouts. Science and Math subjects are a different case, I think (though there should be a small class for mathematically-challenged, like a special class or something; just kidding). Imagine Speech Communication in a large-class setting; how could a student, god bless him, deliver a speech in front of 160 students when he couldn’t even deliver it with 30 students? (Though rumors say that there will be recitation classes, the same process with Math and Science subjects.) Same goes with all the other subjects.

Also, the junior faculty of both Department of Humanities and Department of Social Sciences will be wiped-out since, to put it simply, only the senior faculty will remain to teach the large classes. It’s probably out of sympathy that I detest this part since my Psychology professor has been having qualms about it for the past few weeks. Sadly, I have to say she’s one of my most effective and competent professors ever (the entire class would have to agree with that, I’m betting my laptop about this).

When I was a freshman I watched Isko’t Iska, a play-slash-musical which demonstrates what it’s like in the university, like a play to give way and welcome the new batch. One of their songs has the lyrics “conducive to learning, U P L B.” For the next set of freshmen, if ever the large class policy will be implemented, I don’t think the lyrics would still fit in their condition.

I’m very much disappointed that some of my classmates, especially my Communication Arts batchmates, are not that sympathetic with these affairs (though I know they do have their personal reasons). They refuse to go to the rallies and fight for the remaining threads of quality education in the University. Think of the next batches; the tuition fee increase happened four years ago, yes, but we should not let this happen.

LARGE CLASS POLICY, IBASURA!

Neglect

My life seems to conspire against my blog–they (referring to the aspects of my life: friends, acads, orgs) loathed it, that they use every stratagem and subterfuge known to man just to go against my blogging, just to stop me from doing a three-year habit (should I still consider it as such when it had been washed away from my system ever since I entered college?)–but I’m still doing it.

I wonder why.

This semester looks pretty tight with a theater and a critical writing class, though I can’t help but feel proud that I could still afford to drink (a bit), in the midst of reading short stories and the academic mishmash. I quit jogging two weeks ago, no wonder my stomach bulged (as if I had abs to begin with) once again. I have been neglecting my facial hair for three weeks and running, have been neglecting the luxury of reading books (my recent purchase would be One Hundred Years of Solitude for 150 pesos from Booksale!), have been neglecting my camera and the guitar as well (as if–though the phrase might sound overused–that I have guitar skills to begin with).

Ultimately, I have been neglecting writing (creative-wise) for so long. It pains me to know that even if I considered it as something precious, I neglected it from the juggles and shuffles–whatever that means.

Noche Buena

December is nearing, and though the trend of installing Christmas lights and decors has immensely decreased through the years (I couldn’t blame practicality), I’m still hoping to have a nice Christmas with Dad and… the maid. Of course. I’m thinking of grilled T-bone steak marinated with nothing but salt and pepper, buttered corn and carrots, some simmered asparagus, and tossed Caesar salad. How American, I know. It reminds me of that traditional Thanksgiving dinner (it happened May of 2008, when I last visited my Mom and my sisters and my niece in New York; my sister told me it’s a Thanksgiving dinner since we’re still… together).

Spaghetti is too heavy for the appetite (steak’s just fine for me; even better since it’s not easily spoiled, and can be fried again with garlic as salpicado, oh my), and we usually eat the traditional hamon in New Year’s Eve. I’m not fond of pancit (except pancit bihon guisado), not fond of speared hotdogs and marshmallows, too.

Wait, that doesn’t even count as something you’d prepare for a Noche Buena.

Damn it, I’d rather eat sardines and fried rice for Noche Buena (fine, pass me that platter of sausages) if Mom and my sisters were there, eating with us in the small round dining table we have. It would be very fine if my brother–if ever his third detox in the rehab worked and those ten years of drug addiction behind him–would be eating with us, too, for Noche Buena. Then our maid, Jenny, would be preparing a bonfire to burn our one-foot Christmas tree she bought in the marketplace for forty pesos in replacement of a towering one, adorned with the balls and thingamajigs dressed in this red-and-green Christmas attire, and that gold sash you usually see in beauty pageants. At its feet I’ll find a simple, heartfelt gift: a pack of Royce chocolate-coated potato chips. Fuck yeah.

What I’m saying here is that I don’t really care about the steak or that plateful of corn and carrots. Heck, it even reminds me of my family in New York! What I would really like to happen is this scene you see on local TV channels (thank goodness I don’t watch TV anymore–it might depress the hell out of me), those station IDs with such a delusional Filipino family eating Noche Buena. Together.

But if it ever that scene comes true, with the sardines and Mom and my sane brother and all, I would prefer Spanish sardines better than the canned stuff. Pass me that mashed onion-and-tomato combo soaked in patis and suka, please.

It’s one of those nights where it’s too late for yesterday and too early for tomorrow.

Well, I was lying in my bed in this Norman Mailer way–I mean, the way Norman Mailer’s character in The American Dream might have done it, smoking a cigarette stick and just blowing it away to the ceiling. It’s a classic way of smoking, methinks, with Cherry or Donna sleeping besides you, the way they must have looked like in the 60s or 70s, or the way those hipster polaroids depict it. I have just finished watching Insomnia from the laptop, directed by Christopher Nolan (I’m finding my way around directors lately; I think that I should know the directors too, out of respect), and by the time I was smoking my last cigarette through the Norman Mailer way (I should reread again that book if I would ever grow up, since I couldn’t exactly grasp the entire plot, sorry) my iTunes started playing blink-182.

When I was in my High School (here we go again) I used to listen to them. Not really non-stop and all that exaggerated fanboy lines, no. This Dell of a laptop first broke down in its first year, in 2007, and all my music files were wiped out from the system–my blogging archives and my music, including my entire blink-182 discography. I soon got tired of redeeming my entire library back (which is full of Saosin and Senses Fail, heh) so I didn’t give a shit about my library until recently, when I tried logging in to my Last.fm account.

I downloaded some of their albums I liked last Friday and it hit me.

One of my personally memorable posts in Utakgago.com is entitled “Songs as Memory Cards”, and though it did fail (unanimously!) in its attempt to narrate or pose this capability of songs to save memories, well, I still liked the thought. I don’t even think the readers understood what I’ve said in that post; they thought it’s esoteric, or that it is just some fucked up delusion I made

What hit me is that whenever I listen to blink-182 songs, I don’t remember High School. At all. BUT it gives me shivers, for in the summer of 2007 at Fort Lee, New Jersey, when I was at the backseat of the Subaru my sister used to own, I was listening to blink-182’s Down. (I do have an unquestionably sharp memory.)

At my sixth puff I was listening to Stay Together For The Kids, and it was eerie to listen to, in a night like that. November. The biting cold.

As I type this I’m listening to All The Small Things and all I remember was their awesome video–they were nude, all right, and they looked like Backstreet Boys and shit and it was beyond hilarious.

I know some of you guys don’t like blink-182 since they’re punk, or that you hate tattoos who happened to look like men (or rockstars, or Pharrell). But to put it generally, there are certain kinds of songs where we develop this special, personal (even biased) intimacy. Our spines shiver, our faces smile, our eyes well with tears out of the nostalgia we stoically deny. May it be blink-182 or that braided Britney Spears singing in the late 90s–or even Sammy Davis Jr. for all I care–the point of those special songs we have on our playlists, on our iPods or what-have-yous, is to refresh memories in our minds. It could torture us to the point that we would want to delete the song or crack the CD (don’t do it; I’m also on the verge of deleting my blink-182 songs because of the same reason) but that’s life: it’s a royal pain in the ass no matter where you go. At least you’re listening to a song. I’d be damned if it’s blink-182, too.

That way, they’re memory cards. I don’t really care if you guys understand it, but this is better than the former write-up (which is so last 2007; bordering on palm-in-the-face sentences and awkwardly written emotions).