La rentrée

May 25, 2009

I don’t want to sound GC (that’s grade conscious for you), but I’m currently stocking up for the coming semester. Hahaha! I’m reading a lot of e-books and journals that have something to do with the subjects I’m going to take: Natural Science 4 (Earth: Our Habitat), Natural Science 50 (Molecules to Man), STS (Science, Technology and Society), and Development Studies 126 (International Aspects of Philippine and Third World Development). I’m also going to take Speech 11 (Voices of Literature) and Badminton, but I don’t I think I have to “study” them in the same sense as I’m doing with the others.

 

On the outset it seems that I had much choice regarding my subjects (including their schedules!) NS 4 – I really didn’t have much choice about this. I remember logging this in my ESF just because of its cool course name. A friend told me that NS 4 is similar to Geology 11, one of the subjects I took when I was still in Biochemistry. I have a Tarbuck book (the standard DPSM textbook on earth science courses) and my Geo 11 notes are still intact and legible so I wouldn’t be having much trouble with this subject. But that means a redundancy in what I have learned. If I had my own way, I’m would change NS 4 to NS 5 (Sustainable Development) instead. Too bad, my preferred NS 5 professor’s (Prof. Lacdan) schedule is in conflict with my other subjects. Looks like I’m stuck with this one.

 

NS 50 – Hahaha! I’m taking this subject because I feel like giving justice to my Biochem “past”. Honestly, I wonder why I ever got the Biochem slot, I mean, I’m not that intelligent, and I’m betting all my money that my lowest UPCAT scores were in the Math and Science portion of the exam. NS 50, from its course description, is more of conceptual overview of or introduction to biochemistry (biochemie sans les mathématiques, hope I got the translation right). When was still optimistic, approximately the first 2 months of my college life, I toyed with the idea of becoming an immunologist or something like that. There’s no remote chance that I’ll ever become one, but that I still like to read conceptual books and articles about the immune system, infectious diseases, epidemics… I hope we get to cover topics like that.

 

STS – I think it’s required of all students. The only choice I have, aside from its schedule, is the professor. And between Prof. Solano and others, it’s Solano, hands down! He was my Math 17 professor, and I’m forever indebted to him for giving me a passing grade (yeah, yeah, the computation of most DPSM grades are strictly objective, but there’s got to be some professor factor since I failed under my first Math 17 professor unlike in my second one). I don’t know how he handles the subject, but bet it’s going to be fun (his conduct of Math 17 was quite cool for a morbid subject). My target is to get a well-deserved 1.25+ in order to redeem myself. I’m no longer content to be just second – second poorest performing student in class, that is! Hahaha!

 

DS 126 – I’m taking that subject to fill the minimum required number of units to graduate with honors. Or should I say, to get a 10% chance of getting a GWA equivalent to 1.75 flat. My present GWA (I only computed the subjects in the BA Social Science curriculum) is around 1.78. I need to strike 1.5+ in all the 4 subjects I’m taking this semester just to reach 1.75 or overshoot a little (like… 1.74?) I don’t know if it’s possible and if my failed grades in NSTP and ComSci 11 would be the “disqualifying factors”. But then, even without the laude, relevant DS 126 knowledge and experience is always welcome.

 

Speech 11 – I still have an AH subject to finish. “Voices of Literature” sounds easier yet classier than “Speech Communication in English”. Again that’s me, choosing subjects on the basis of their course names! Hahaha! That gives you an idea how haphazard I am when it comes to decision making.

 

Badminton – I don’t know why I chose that. Maybe it was because avoiding a Philippine Games schedule under Prof. Israel (Prof. Israel was my professor in 2 of my PE subjects – remember that in UP, we are only required 4 PE subjects). Which reminds me – I gave away my badminton rackets last year in a charity drive.

 

So I’m reading and reading… I hope that gives you some idea why I named this blog Reading Station. I want to reach my target grades, but I’m not making a study-hard promise. All my college life I made it my incoming semester’s resolution not to cram or have good study habits but I eventually break it come the first 3 weeks of the semester. 1^st semester, 4^th year – I passed a crappy thesis proposal not worth a minute of formal thesis defense. 2^nd semester, 4^th year – I submitted an equally crappy essay on globalization and a book review (followed by 97 question marks and 102 exclamation points) on the last day of submission having done them the night before. God (not that I really believe in Him) knows what sort of cramming and instant paper generation short of plagiarism I’ll be doing just to meet deadlines this semester, which should be my last.

 

Better than promise that, I’ll just strive to live up to my motto: “I may not the best person in what I do, but I’m always at my best in what I do”. How about that, a motivational statement and lame excuse rolled into one!

 

La rentrée means back to school in French. Don’t ask me to pronounce it – I murder spoken French pretty well.

My heart is bleeding for itself

May 22, 2009

Last night I went to our family doctor for my medical clearance, a requirement for enrolment. My doctor (he is actually a pediatrician) has been looking after my health for nearly 15 years. In the past we went to him only when I get sick (or really sick – it usually takes a 40-degree fever and bloody discharges to convince my parents that I need medical help) but since I have begun to have recurrent episodes of ___, he had been giving me a routine body check. A routine body check includes the accurate taking of body measurements and temperature, visual check, a 20-minute check-up, and of course, pulse rate and blood pressure. It’s really simple and I never thought that they were that important (I mean, I would have found out something was wrong with me before those instruments did). They were just the formal ones and the only ones I can afford given our financial difficulties.

 

After taking my weight, height and body mass index (it’s really easy to compute – just divide your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters), he took my pulse rate. My pulse rate was at 70 which is normal. He then took my blood pressure. My blood pressure was 150/90 (normal is 120/70).

 

My doctor found that my blood pressure was very high. I had been registering higher-than-average blood pressure since last year but my doctor told me that they were still inside the normal continuum and were probably the results of overwork, tension and anxiety. A lot of factors contributed to my higher-than-average blood pressure then: my medications, school work, and issues to deal with. However, I have stopped taking my prescription drugs 9 months ago and have no school work to pressure me. As a matter of fact, I had been resting too much that I’m tired of sleeping, eating, using the PC… I’m tired my lazy katuga routine.

 

My mother has high blood pressure and two of her close relatives died from heart disease at a relatively early age. Heart disease runs in her family (not my father’s – they have no history of strokes or heart attacks). My doctor told me that my high blood pressure is probably inherited and aggravated by my lazy lifestyle and unhealthy diet (we now have a carinderia – go figure). I feel so unlucky when it comes to my health – I inherited from my mother’s family my imbalanced brain chemistry, pulmonary tuberculosis and now high blood pressure.

 

I was depressed. I felt weak and couldn’t answer my doctor’s questions clearly. He said that I try a low-salt and low-fat diet and do brisk walking every morning. He sensed that I was become too anxious for my own good – he assured me that I’m not yet going to die of high blood pressure, it is not critically high and I could do much to reverse the trend without taking medications (I’m averse in using drugs to cure myself). After all, I’m young – my body can still take the extra strain. But not for a very long time.

 

My doctor signed the form but cheated my blood pressure. He said that it might attract the attention of medical counselors in school and make my enrolment more complicated especially as I’m enrolling for a PE subject; he told me that badminton doesn’t sound to be an unsafe form of physical exertion in my current condition. My “official” blood pressure is 130/80. Except for that, my organ systems are still normal. Nevertheless he told me to watch for kidney trouble (if I get pains at the back, painful urination and abnormal discharges), pains at the back of my head, frequent spells of dizziness and palpitations. I am scared but my doctor told me that anxiety would do me more harm than good. A healthy diet, exercise and most of all, peace of mind, is what I need and can do to improve my situation. And lastly, on a light note, he said that he wasn’t slating me in his hypertensive clients list yet (hypertensive is above 140/90 but he said he’ll make an exception with my case).

 

I’m not saying I have recovered from the shock of yesterday’s news but I’m trying. It’s always a state of mind. My body, more so my mind, can’t stand another state of calamity. Surely I don’t want to die yet or die clutching my chest and gasping for air but more than that, I don’t want to die with a troubled mind. My goal is to die smiling, to die content that I have lived my life in the best way possible. I can’t die smiling yet so the struggle to get better and increase the number of my future birthday celebrations.

 

Have a heart for your heart!

From networks to cobwebs

May 21, 2009

Yesterday I just said “I’m not like many of my generation who feel incomplete without a blog or membership in a social networking service” and now I’m thinking of redoing all the social networking mess I have done.

 

It is not that I ran into trouble with them. But they do have the potential to cause, if not serious trouble, then serious nuisance. I don’t want my virtual face to accumulate virtual dust, but neither do I have the will to sweep them at least once a week.

 

There’s a lot of cleaning up to do, and if I can’t find a way to deactivate my accounts, then I need to change my profiles to ones that are more presentable, and employer-friendly. My Facebook profile should the last thing that might get in the way of a promising career. 

Boys Over Flowers [WL post]

May 20, 2009

This is a spontaneous post. I intend to post a review after I have watched the whole pirated DVD (which, I should I say, has the best English subtitles I have ever seen in a Korean drama).

 

It’s quite corny, really, but the Korean version of Hana Yori Dango is much better than the Taiwanese or Japanese ones.

 

 

I just had the feeling that a single post isn’t enough. Hahaha! Enjoy!

Inspiration and Commitment

This is really tiring.

 

I don’t know why, but ever since I stopped blogging a year ago, the words are hard to come by. Maybe it’s because a good fourth of my functional nerve cells have gone on permanent vacation after a year of advising, analyzing data, analyzing situations, assessing performance, assessing progress, assessing quality, assisting, attending to detail, building relationships, building credibility, building cooperation, budgeting, calculating, corresponding, communicating, conceptualizing, consulting, correcting, counseling, data processing, deciding, editing, educating, empathizing, enforcing (my favorite!), evaluating, filing, forecasting, imagining, intuiting, intervening, inventing, investigating, lecturing, listening, managing tasks, observing, operating computers, organizing, project managing, public speaking, recording, repairing, reconstructing, reporting, researching, troubleshooting, understanding, using the PC and the internet, and more at a level ten times than I have been used to. There aren’t many brain cells left to do “intellectual” work like blogging.

 

Or maybe it’s because I am afraid to do it again. I’m not hiding the fact my former blog (or rather, my irresponsibility and impulsiveness) became a source of serious trouble last year. Of course, I now know better, that I won’t repeat the same mistake again, but there is still this feeling of apprehensiveness.

 

However, I really need to get back to blogging. It is one of the best ways to entice my on-leave nerve cells to go back to work (to do what they do best – think!) and cure my chronic loss of self-esteem. I’m not like many of my generation who feel incomplete without a blog or membership in a social networking service; my experience taught me that a non-blogging lifestyle is still possible despite the blogger population explosion (at least among this country’s young intelligentsia). However, the desire to communicate is always there, as well as the drive to improve and adapt. There’s blog technology, why not take advantage it?

 

Wow, would you believe it? I managed to type more 304 words in just an hour (and that’s from scratch and with a good fourth of my functional nerve cells on leave)! Way to go!

 

A reminder:

           

            For a single post one needs inspiration.

            But for a functioning blog one needs commitment.

 

Thanks VZ for inspiring me to do this again!