Got Nowhere Else to Go.

Damn it I’m bored again. I’m restless, I hate everything. There’s nothing to look forward to everyday. I hate that I can’t buy the books I want. And I hate that I still don’t have a birthday gift. Nothing real anyway. Who gets a recorder, a laser pointer, and a book of “Common Phrases” as gifts for their 18th birthday? Ugh. And those things weren’t even really for me. They were just things lying around in the house. Hell.

I hate that I can’t be thankful for what I have. But what the hell. Can you really blame me for feeling this way? Especially when I feel so detached from this freakin universe.

I. am. soo. bored.

I’m so pissed off I feel like strangling someone. Or yelling at that inconsiderate creep.

Today is my dad’s birthday. This morning our LTS 2 leader told us that our peer evaluation would be at 6-8pm, a time I had told her time and again I wasn’t available. The reason? Duh. Mass at 5.30pm.

So I reacted to the GM–something about 6-8 being the period where majority of the people were free [which is stupid because everyone is supposed to be present during a peer evaluation].

I said, “What? Final na yun? Di ako pwede. Birthday ng dad ko. We have to attend mass. Family thing.”

AND SHE DIDN’T REPLY. What the hell kind of a leader is that?

Maybe she doesn’t understand what family things are. That families go to mass whenever a there’s a birthday celebrator. Or maybe she thinks I can get out of the engagement and criticize her performance this semester instead.

Like not going to mass with my family is something I’d WANT to get out of. AS IF IT WOULD EVEN BE AN OPTION.

As if my choices are

a) attend mass with father, mother, and brother–the people I love most in the world; or
b) throw scathing remarks at some students I happened to be groupmates with

*evil laugh* Like she’d want to hear what I have to say about her. Like anybody wants to hear what I have to say about anybody. Because believe me, I’m a critic at heart. You’d know if you ever were my classmate in 120, Hum1, Econ, etc.

But that’s not the end of the story yet. That’s not why I’m pissed. That is only the beginning.

I researched Pahinungod’s phone number this afternoon. I was blind enough not to find it in the directory, so I leafed through some university publications. I finally found it in a General Curriculum manual of all the courses.

I spoke to Kuya Humphrey, this guy who helps guide students in the final days of their field work/group activities. I asked him if it was okay for me not to attend and stuff. He said as long as no issue about me came up later, I didn’t have to follow-up anything.

Of course I was confident I had no issue. I’ve been punctual and diligent. I wrote a spankin’ single spaced account of the problems and solutions we encountered during our sessions for the final paper. And most of all I taught the children wholeheartedly…

I sent a message to one of my closest friends in the group, telling her that I wouldn’t be present and that if anyone asked, explain to them that yadda yadda yadda.

I was going to text more people, but I was losing load fast, and at the time I had another engagement to attend to.

So I ended up not texting anyone anymore. And what do you know, Irony happened.

My friend sent me a message–one that I was able to read after the mass–about her not being able to go to the evaluation either. She said she texted our group monitor to tell the others of our situation. Because I so trusted my groupmates, I believed that even without the help of that freakin’ hell of a leader, the facilitator would understand our excuses.

But behold: an hour ago our monitor texted us and told us that when the faci asked why my friend and I were absent, they couldn’t give an answer. They told the faci that we would explain things ourselves.

I can’t believe those people. Can’t they deliver a damn message without me having to flood their inboxes? What the hell is so hard to explain about, It’s Rialynne’s dad’s birthday and they’re attending mass?

Don’t they know that it’s only in special occasions where I can get my family to be complete during mass?

God. I hate people like that. If I were the freakin leader, I would make sure I knew the reason why a member was absent–if it were something I’d been warned about.

And I know I warned that hell of a leader that I would not be available on the 24th at night.

Now I’m being asked to report to BNP as soon as possible.

As soon as possible my ass.

Creeps.

I turn 18 on Wednesday. My dad’s been pestering me about what I want. Even though he doesn’t know about this site, I’m going to draw up a list of the things I’d love to receive–no matter how expensive

Macbook

A laptop. Jeez, do they have to ask? I totally need my own thing.

Stereo with USB port

Plus a remote of course. I waste time walking over to my boombox just to increase/lower the volume and to switch stations. I want to be able to plug in my iPod too.

Sony Ericsson c905

Looks familiar? Aight. I still want one so I can take shots even when I’ve used up my camera’s battery. Also, I can listen to music when I don’t have my iPod with me.

Harry Potter book 7

*Sigh* I still haven’t read this because I want to have my own copy when I do. I’ve also kind of put off reading it because I don’t want the series to end, but I think it’s been too long and I need to be able to read it already.

I want to buy so many books I wish I had a gift certificate worth P5000. Tsk2.

I also want tons of clothes and shoes and bags. I can’t post all the styles I want; that’d be tedious, and I may not find everything.

That’s it for now. Till next time.

I just realized my previous entry is my first entry for the year. Sorry I’ve neglected this site again. I’ve had a lot going on. I kind of wish I’d written about them all…

Anyway, before I had the magazine frenzy this evening, I was deeply troubled by my students at MES [what that stands for, I'll leave for you to guess] I teach children every week as a requirement for all college students. Today my groupmates and I gave the some-40 3rd grade kids a short exam covering nouns, pronouns, verbs, and the first three basic operations.  They were asked to add and subtract three-digit numbers by two-digit numbers, and to multiply two digit numbers. What’s sad is, most of them still hadn’t mastered these topics when we’d given them tons of quizzes already. And I lamented the multiplication part most of all; I thought we had been clear on how to answer the problems. But they still didn’t know that multiplying two-digit numbers is a two-step process. Well, not all of them performed poorly; I’m sorry to generalize, but really, when a teacher sees that one or two of his/her students does not understand a concept, the teacher knows that he/she has to repeat the lesson.

Unfortunately for us, we didn’t get to discuss the answers because their adviser had to explain the mechanics of their National Achievement Test tomorrow. We didn’t even get to wish them goodluck. They’re going to take a very important exam tomorrow and they haven’t seemed to grasp half the things we’ve taught them…

They still can’t identify that among the words horse, pretty, and blue, the noun is horse and not pretty.

They’ve remained confused with replacing nouns with pronouns, that in a sentence starting with “My friends” what they substitute is We.

They have no idea what a verb is–even when it’s translated to Filipino. And when we ask what the subject of the sentence is, they just look at us blankly.

Still many of them do not know that there is such a thing as “borrowing” when subtracting two to three-digit numbers, and so they end up with 4-5=1

They hold up their fingers as if to count when we ask what 1 x 3 is, and simply stare at us when we say, “What’s zero times one?”

And after numerous exercises, they still failed to answer multiplication problems of two-digit numbers, such that–

45

x 21

85

–at least for those who do know that 5 x 1 = 5.

Such is their situation. Don’t even ask about science and reading comprehension; we didn’t get there.

My groupmates and I were all distressed with the exam. I don’t think there was any student who didn’t call one of us over to ask how to answer a certain part. It was frustrating to see them so clueless. But then I banked on explaining the items after the test so that they wouldn’t make the same mistakes tomorrow, because that was the plan, but we were ushered out “kindly” because Madame had to tell them about the mechanics for their exam.

What’s maddening is the thought that maybe we didn’t do enough. Maybe we lacked something big, or confused them and weren’t able to level-off a few things.

Maybe we moved from one lesson to the next too quickly, and they were left hanging and with a poor mastery of the previous lesson.

I realize all this now, but it’s too late. Tomorrow is their exam, and next week is the last time we’ll see them.

Suddenly I find myself needing more time.