Clouds in My Coffee

... struck me, as any other life-moving stories did. Just when I was about to try to start working at 11:30 p.m., our TV downstairs was tuned to HBO, featuring "Freedom Writers," which tackles division and racism in an American classroom setting, and a teacher doing her job too well. Whoah. Yun lang . And it's too good to be true-to-life. I actually searched for the Freedom Writers Foundation and their book, the Freedom Writers Diary. It was there. It was true. It struck me, well, because I share the same sentiments as a teacher, only Ms. Gruwell had worse. Racism and gangsters are not major problems in the country, well at least not in my small world. But division and distraction of students from personal lives that make them poor performers are issues here. Ms. Gruwell's methods were unconventional, inefficient in resource use, but very effective in the long run. I want to be as good as her. Problem is, I'm not a literature teacher. I'm as statistics profess...

That's how an Isabelan friend described Sister Emelita's extraordinary sightreading powers. (Sightreading = playing/singing a musical piece while reading it for the first time). That's how I feel now. Halukay ube . I'm in high spirits primarily because I'm out of my dreaded full-time work. Now, I have more time for myself and for setting my priorities straight. I'm also gratified for a lot of things that came this first quarter: SICCO's second Baroque concert, SIC Music Department's Baguio retreat, my approved Shengen and UK visa, opportunity to work with WHO, among others. But most of all, I am thrilled to prepare for the trip of my life - out of the country, to the womb of Western civilization. But some things bother me a lot. First, I am now a bum, and I don't feel to have the capacity to set priorities. I still have a lot of things to work hard on - my masters thesis, to top them all. I am also burdened as a music student and statistics p...