noo-ni-noo-ni-noo

  just a quick one.

  Z gifted me wth a czech phrase book.

  for christmas.

  with his family.

i gedit

i really do.

i was on the phone with my mom last night, letting her know of my plan to visit Z's family and spending Christmas with them.

whew.

M's trip, it seems, have put so many things in perspective.

i'm ready.

hopeful.

excited.

but most of all,

thankful for all the blessings God has given me.

Yes Lord, I get it.

a little bit of black

it seems timely that the topic of this post happened this historic day.

i've been having trouble staying awake at night.  usually, i would have dinner and then i almost immediately fall asleep.  i would intend to nap for a few hours and wake up around midnight and resume reading.  i would wake up at 3am, go to the gym by 5:15 and prep for another workday.

in short, i have been unsuccessful with my mission.

and so i asked a couple of my kids on how to stay up at night.

here's how that conversation went :

me :  guys, do you have any tips on how to stay up late?

B :  why?

me :  because after dinner, all i do is sleep.

M  :  so?

me:  i need to study.  what happens is, right after i eat, i would fall asleep.

B  :  you got niggavitis?

me :  what?

B  :  you got niggavitis.   a black people sickness. we eat a lot, then it's ovah.  we out.

        you got a little bit of black in you, ms. b.

me :  too speechless

not that this gives them a pass, but my kids are black.

did i tell you i love my job? 

  

suplada

I am not a touchy feely type of person. I am not averse to PDA per se.  scratch that, i think i am, but this does not mean i am cold and unfeeling.  I just feel shy or uncomfortable with certain body cues.

Working in the high school, I've noticed, to my slight dismay, that youngsters hug and kiss each other as casually as we Filipinos raise our eyebrows as a form of greeting.  

Some of my former students, mostly boys, like to hug me.  sigh.  I did not want to give them the impression that I am averse to them, but  I just don't think it is appropriate for a student to hug his teacher, especialy at their age.  I don't mind hugging my pre-school students, but these "boys"  are a different story.  Not that I think they mean anything wrong, I just think it is inappropriate.  

But how do you tell them not to hug you without hurting their feelings?  Apparently, I didn't have to.  My face said it all.  One of them  said I look like I am in pain.  One of them, got miffed, saying he doesn't hug all his teachers, so I said, don't make me an exception."  He did not like that.

Anyway, in one of my conversations with my younger students, the topic of my aversion or discomfort about the hug issue came up.  They all gave me their opinions, basically saying that I should be happy that my students hug me because that means they like me.

 Student 1:  why do you have that look on your face when they hug you?  you don't like being hugged?

 Me :  (absorbed at what I was reading)  But I don't need a hug!  

  explosive laughter.

  not just from my students, but from the class next door.

  and so I have become, the little ol' grump.

 

 p.s.

   i would like to make it clear that I do hug my friends and I do like hugging my tutees Richard and Olivia, and yes I do like hugging Z.

   that's all, thanks.

   

whew 2

jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnn!!!!

my final grade in my first online grad class is an A+!

yey!

i wanna call my mom now.

tee-hee.

free candy for my students on Halloween.

more dancing at home tonight as i clean the apartment.

yey!!!

whew

and just like that, my first course in grad school is over.

sigh. talk about baptism of fire. but knowing me, i'm grinnin' ear to ear after all the chaos and the cramming.

not really.

i just realized, at this age that i do not like group work. scrap that, i think i disliked group work way back in college. i was just reminded by how much i disliked it when i had to do a group project for my class.

see, back in high school, bossy ol' me loved group work because i was always the leader. i thrived in group work. big group work, and mostly of co-curricular nature. i loved theater production. loved loved loved it. still do.

come college, i mostly chilled and concentrated on my studies. i started looking after my own back. for one, i disliked user-friendly classmates in college who refuse to take their own notes and ask me if they can just photocopy mine. solution? i used neon pens. they don't come out when you photocopy them in the cheap ass photocopiers we had in jumanities.

anyway, back to grad school, so we had to make a slide show. i was an eager beaver to get an A on this class so i said to meself that i will do well with this group project. turns out my group mates were a bunch of eager beavers as well. two can't seem to get enough of extra work. i backed off because i didn't want to add on to the club, so i said, okay i'll do what's left.

anyway, long story short. we crammed for this project and almost didn't meet the deadline. i was hit by my two groupies because they felt that i didn't give in as much time for the project.

okay, i respect that.

but wait, here's my take on it:

say for example, that in a group of 4 we all had our piece of the puzzle to do. my working style has been. okay, delegate, work individually, and reconvene at a given time.

groupie 1 gave me two other tasks aside from my part : to write the intro and conclusion of the slide show. did ideliver? yes, i did, and in a timely manner.

i do not see any benefits of staying up late, losing sleep and staying online all night just to wait for one another to finish. come on, we all have other things to do. besides, the number of hours spent does not necessarily amount to the same amount or level of productivity. sleep deprivation is bad for the brain cells. this we all just read in this month's class. and then there's the phone. you know...

if there's something strange ... in your neighborhood... who you gonna call?

with a fulltime job, tutoring 3 kids on the side, an apartment to maintain and this grad class to think of, the weekends are the only days i can run my errands. i tutor on the weekends as well. my groupies all stayed by the computer all weekend. i stayed online for a certain number of hours. i slept at 2 am on friday night, and 12 am, saturday.

when i had to go to bestbuy to return an electronic on its final day for return, on saturday, i asked my groupies a couple of hours before i had to go that i'll have to run errands, and that to PLEASE give me a call if they need me so i can rush back home or find internet connection somewhere so i can do what i need to do for the group.

groupie 1 said, they'll be fine. so said "cool."

a few hours later, when i logged on, i got an offline message from groupie 1 that groupie 2 had to revise my reference page because i didn't follow the prescribed APA format. ooops, my bad, but she did not have to do that, that's my job. so i asked 1 if he tried calling me, because i was obssessing at my phone looking at it every 30 minutes to make sure i have a signa,l should any of them need me. 1 said he tried calling me, i didn't answer. i told him i had no missed call. i checked the number with him. he got my area code wrong. he was calling maryland for procopio's sake.

and yes, i felt bad for that.

but in the end what can i do? just hope that things get better next time and get things straight about working habits from the get go.

the good thing about them though is this : they really are great people. and i'm glad we're still friends.

now if only i can still get an A in this class.

another early monday

and so i survived week 3 of my first month in grad school. i have 2 more porjects due this week and one group project.  

yesterday i had my first group webconference where i saw a groupmate from japan, philly and dallas.   sweet.

last week too, slim and celebrated our first anniversary.  wow, we were both stumped when we realized that it has been a year since we first met.  tomorrow is the anniversary of our first date.

slim's been a great help for me last week.  i was down with fever, and he played my nurse.  he also optimized my boo so he's up and running like new.  he's got a new toy, the Asus Eee.  He might exchange it for a better model.

Anyway, it's monday again.  Here's to another week of learning, teaching, cramming, wrting bs, torturing my adorable kids and doing it all over again.