Internet Explorer Loses Popularity

Now, this is not a news headline nor a hype we hear from the television. Instead, this is just an observation on what people use as their browser nowadays.

Well for me, when I had a new computer just last June, the first thing I did was to download Mozilla Firefox. Firefox wasn't new to me that time. I started to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox when I was in 3rd level high school. That was about four years ago... I was still using dial-up connection. There are of course reasons why I found still am still finding Mozilla as useful than Internet Explorer.

The main adavantage that Firefox had given me at that time was its tabbed browsing. It greatly helped me get rit of the clutter on the taksbar. Also, having a slower connection, I was able to switch back tabs to watch pages loading simultaneously. With that, I was actually saving time.

It was just new nowadays that more and more people use Firefox. Well maybe because it is fast and more safe to use. Internet Explorer are more risky to vulnerablities in terms of privacy and unwanted software. There has been a shift of preference which is to abandon Internet Explorer because in most internet cafes they already inlcuded desktop shortcuts of Firefox and even to some, made it as their default browser.

Right now, I am experimenting on Apple's Safari Browser which already opened for Windows users. One of the impressive things to look for in this browser is its good-looking and clean typography. The text on the pages looks better in safari than internet explorer and firefox. However, it is still on its beta distribution and still for trial for end users.

For a time now, I haven't used Internet Explorer. And I think this will be IE's destiny.

Being Down!

The last parts of the semester have always driven me nuts. I see a pattern that whenever these times come, I always have more reasons to get lazy and not to do work, out of the piling school requirements. And I always have these pitiful realizations on my self that really make me feel down.

I don't know how can I get a way out of these. The more work I have queued, the more I hate to start at least a piece of the tasks. Anyway, writing for me doesn't need to be rushed. I am always looking for a fresh start. After all, the semester is ending and academic requirements have to be done somehow. Good luck to me!

UP students, I hope you are feeling me.

Which belongs to the university? to UP?

This question has been really hot among discussions with some students, in my experience

Does CBA (college of business administration) deserve to be in the University?

Background:

• The purpose of universities before was to produce knowledge. Seems like these days the meaning of a university changed into an institution which provide only diplomas for the professions.
• Can CBA help for the benefit of the university and the country; or for the transnational corporations waiting for docile graduates to work for them?
• The current officials of UP admin were from this college. How do they see the university? Didn't Roman and Cao focus only on the perspective of economics and efficiency while neglecting important aspects of university life and the core role of UP in Philippine society?

TOFI's humming beneath the floors

A friend texted me one day during the summer term this year, which has just ended days ago, that he was a facilitator in the freshman advance registration. He said that he saw and heard a woman, which he speculated to be a mother of an UPCAT passer enrolling in UP, pleading on the registration or assessment desk for a down payment of her son/daughter's tuition.

To those who might not know, the tuition increase in the campuses of UP was approved (though with questionable processes) by the BOR last December. This was said to be applicable to the incoming freshmen and transferees having the student number 2007 above.

The tuition rose from more or less P 6,000 to more than P20,000. The rate per unit has risen from P300 to P1000 (Diliman,LB,Manila - average STFAP bracket).

Well, I will not play on the numbers. I just want to express the sentiment that it is a mistake to say that UP will affect only those 07 students--the belief that the upperclassmen who have been excluded from the proposal's scope, will be totally unaffected. I guess not.

The freshie registration was held in Melchor Hall. It was observed that most who enrolled had come from the high class, the majority. Another funny gossip was that, a maid was being asked by the student facilitators or the UP staff in charge where is the enrollee. The maid answered that the enrollee was in boracay or abroad for vacation. Well, pretty normal in a private school I guess, but from how I have been culturally brought about in UP, freshmen have got to deal with their own matters in the university.

Dorm Hell
A lot have gone furious about the change in admission of dormitories in the campus. Well, a proposal was passed to put the job of admitting all years level for the dormitories to the Office of Student Housing. Before, dormitories were the ones to accept applications and admit students.

However, a lot of students already residing in the dormitory will be displaced due to a change in the standard or indices in ranking the deserving students for the privilage. Also, the freshmen were already been accepted by dorms other than Kalayaan. Before the results of the new dorm admission process, a considerably large number of freshmen already have been enlisted in Ilang-ilang, Yakal, etc.

So, why were the freshmen, a chuck of their number, put in the upper class-men dormitories? Well, of what I had heard, it was a form of an aid for the students who will have problems in residence because of the cost of the tuition. Well, the problem might not had been the residence but the tuition fees.
We were made to believe the about the effects of this TOFI among the upper-classmen.

Well the only issue is that, we will always be affected by the effects of TOFI. More and more come each day--from the real-time manual enlistment (just turned out to serve the benefit of some), to the dominance of BAA students in student privileges, no ID no Entry,unexplained increase in misc fees, displacement of students from the dorms, and the admin's incrementing neglect on providing fair privileges for the studentry.

Still we struggle or at least believe in that struggle to make UP an equitarian and just institution.

I'm in my hometown right now. I am a little bored. These following days I have a lot to write and blog about but I don't get the drive or even the attention to write the thoughts down. I know writing skills tend to fade out. It is such a waste to have ideas not being expressed--at least even in my blog which I doubt to be having readers.

I really find it depressing not to be able to express myself in my genuine intent. I could only try in term papers or scholarly papers. God, it is really frustrating.

I don't have the drive to write these days...

i am coming back to manila

Side Comment on Shirt Violence

As my experience, some engg students (not all of them) dirty dig the social sciences and my discipline. They say social sciences are too impractical, easy, uno-able, commonsensical and just a form of wordplay-to-make-sense discipline. As if they could do the things that we do. Well I could not blame them if they are being made to believe they are the paramount of all discipline just because they can earn higher wages. There are explanations why ‘uno ka nga, engg ka ba?’ shirts swarm the campus. Those shirts don’t intend to establish an identity of excellence but instead impose symbolic violence on non-engg students. These kids might not be aware of that and most of the times they are not careful to prejudicepeople.

Deproffesionalizing Sociology: A Reflection


Randy David’s works continues to inspire me. Recently I have read his essay ‘Deproffesionalizing Sociology.’ It hovered on the paradox of the intellectuals’ stand as an agent for social and political ‘problems.’

He basically identified the distance of sociologists and social scientists towards reality. Students and intellectuals are imparted with theories and methodologies. David’s question was: does too attention on these, effect to distance knowledge away from practical use. Praxis is compromised. What happens is that the intellectual is a dysfunction of her ends—to change something.

He suggests that sociologists should strive to use that knowledge and training to change what is seen as a problem. She [the intellectual] should pay an active involvement for social invention and legislation. She should propose changes and plan how it will take effect towards certain ends—to quench the drought of society. These ends would be related to social justice, social equity, national autonomy and others than point towards a better Philippine society.

The problem only is that the distribution of symbolic goods neglects the importance of sociology as a discipline. I believe that sociology can suggest ways to lift us from the self-perpetuating and quick-sanding problems that are considered as an impasse. The only problem is that pragmatism (being practical) kills the inducement of people to indulge in the discipline. You can count how many sociology departments there are in the Philippines and how limited the students are.

So it suggests that social scientists should have a special understanding from the people. People should understand that theory is meaningless without practice. Practice is the final end of the social sciences’ fulfillment of function.

I just hope the people will be aware of these things. I hope that stigmatism will lessen towards the sociologists who indulge in social legislation who most of the times break the law and mores. (I presuppose that the legitimacy and conventions will not be the sole guideline for social design.) In relation with this, there should be an increase attention for the social sciences—make it available for the public and make it a beacon of trust for the people, institutions, and whole society’s well-being.


Note: I may not have a complete or correct interpretation of the reading. So readers of Randy David, ping me if I messed up the ideas. Comments are always welcome.

The Dysfunction of Individualistic Freedom

The university community is open for new and diverse ideas. The problem is, being political is being compromised. Democracy and academic freedom has been arbitrary for everyone.

In my experience, when it comes to student convocations, auditoriums are hardly occupied. Convocation is a form of exercising democracy. This is the place where vast kinds of people merge to indulge into an activity of information exchange and a place where students are ideally united according to their collective interests. So, if the mass of students are present, every partition of the population will symbolically feel involvement into a community. Such scenario will ideally create an invisible tie of responsibility towards each other and the bigger group.

People, who don’t attend community activities, will feel detached to the system that it should belong. Thus, apathy branches out and self-perpetuates. When people or groups are devoid of the idea that they belong to that bigger group will ideally end up to social distrust and distance.

I knew a friend that said that the people who don’t vote for the student council’s election will have no right to complain about anything related to the student welfare. I was kind of accepting his idea.

When people are given enough autonomy and freedom that they can skip student community gatherings and instead go to the mall, there is something sacrificed.

A student convocation made a difference just few days ago. The UPD USC cancelled the classes for time when convocation was about to be held. Reasons not to attend were narrowed down. Aside from that, organizations will be forced to attend the event. Attendees would be counted for points for the UP fair. So people were crowding the Educ Auditiorium.

A little push would gather parts of the community together. The student body was able to address issues to the kids present there.

So, before we celebrate any freedom, we should also put in mind what we may lack to give back something for that freedom. Freedom what we are talking about is to allow ideas and not exactly to allow us to be using that freedom for something else that does not return to a related end intended for that freedom. Freedom is not meant to sacrifice and destabilize the involvement of constituent groups and entities in the community.

Student academic freedom is fought for the students’ collective interests by the students themselves. So, we have a little due to pay—help that freedom to keep on.

No fight won

Well, right now I don’t feel the sense of community and the existence of public realities with some kids of my age. There are some instances that when I am in a group opening a discussion for a social issue, people tend to be quiet and seem to be uninterested. In my experience, my friends’ stamina in talking rise up when talking about gossips, cell phones, branded clothes—things to brag about and people to get envy with.

When I try to put a finger on social issues, silence comes—urging for a topic change. Sometimes I am considered to be overly concerned with things that I can not change—things young people should not be touching in a conversation. They think such topics are irrelevant and inappropriate.

Well, the standards have changed. Young people are more individualistic. They are more concerned with their own dispositions on how they want to manage their lives.
If it isn’t for young people who fought for the rights of their age class and other dominated strata years way, way back, these kinds of choices everyone is crazed to be putting much attention with would not exist today.

I argue that if there are struggles already won few decades ago by our fellow youth, then we should stop there. There is no such thing as a state of completeness. We can not be sure of an absolute social justice. If the youth of the past generations fought for the struggles of their time, then we have our own struggles also.

We should consider every bit of hardship, inconsistencies and contradictions that we feel in our daily realities. Let us consider also our own interest. The battle is never been over unless we try to move. No battle has been completely won.

Meaning social issues that seem so distant from our concerns might actually be ours. They are not hard to find. We just have to realize every bit of questions that we set aside everyday. We should envision our own interest—the youth—part of society which ideally should have been questioning the existing way of things.

Well in some sense, part of the youth is regressing and rotting for conformity and consumerist individualism. Still, there are some who know how to stand on their own interest and active in their role as responsible kids struggling to make history to the Filipinos.

Typhoons

I panicked when I could not text my parents the day when the storm was announced to hit the country. I was wondering what happened at home. I got no clue whether people there were safe or what.

I texted my ‘kababata’ studying here in Manila if she had any idea how was our province. Then, she just confirmed that, yes, the typhoon hit our province. Neither of her relatives were reachable by phone.

So I just thought my vacation will be wrecked. And that impulse was just too selfish. My personal concern there was, that our phone line has just been restored, after two months of waiting, after Milenyo ripped the communication systems apart. So when I go home for the Holidays, there might be a difference between spending it with city services than with none. Pretty weird. Actually, the reason behind that is during my semester break, just right after Milenyo’s doom of horror, there was neither DSL signal nor dial tone. And I am ashamed to confess that—not a social issue though.

Just this noon, my mother called me over the phone. She traveled to Daraga, Albay because communication in Sorsogon was dead and she was checking up on my Auntie there. I was relieved to know that our house was fine. Our phone line which I was crazed to care about was fine. There was a dial tone.

Compared to the damages brought by Milenyo, Reming was not as destructive in our place according to ‘ma. Compared to Albay’s condition, where 300 and rising dead bodies found, we were pretty lucky. She was visiting my Aunt in Daraga.

What was very alarming was that the majority of my batch mates in high school are studying in Bicol University Campuses, which are located among the seriously affected areas (Legaspi City, Daraga, Tabaco, etc.) in Albay Province. And there were reported cases of students which were dead. The mudslide, brought by the excessive rainfall over massive ash deposits formed on Mt. Mayon’s slopes, was pretty much too convincing to be destructive. I saw on the television that some houses were buried up to their ceilings—trapping people inside. It is far more that what happened in my province in late September though finding trees in the horizon was tricky during my sem break in Sorsogon.

People here in NCR might be celebrating typhoons coming in the country because they bring ‘classes suspended’ announcements. But there are some people suffering the loss of property, livelihood, and life in some places they might not take to consider.

Provinces on the pacific side of the archipelago suffer the worst because they serve as the frontlines or receptionists of typhoons. People there might have just recovered from Milenyo. Some of them could not bear to witness the trauma of another typhoon.

Natural calamities have been a part each Bicolanos life—not just siling labuyo, pili nuts, or Peñafrancia Festival. They have been part of mine too. I don’t mean to really embrace the fact that destruction is something cute or exotic. It just feels uneasy for me not to be with my family in times of calamities. I was used to power-downs and water fetch-burdens.

We can’t change calamities. They don’t need a revolution for them to: halt, go around our borders and hover to China. We can not blame any president for these. We just have to pick up what is left and put them up together.

Moving on is slow and painful. The problem is, the quality of living here in the Philippines does not compensate for the loss and damage the affected people discouragingly trying to endure.

We Can Not Be Apathetic

In times like this that the identity of our beloved university will be knocked off its feet by its nearing neo-liberalization, we have the role as students—the youth—to act.

It would be shameful for us that on this time that we have witnessed a big turning point of big social conflict of the community that we can not unite for a common interest. Yes we will graduate and leave the campus soon but it will be far from what it is now in the future.

We can not let the grown-ups tell us what to do, even if they were in the frontline of every picket line during the Marcos’s time. They faced a different reality far from ours today. Simply we can not be living to start on what they left behind and finish what they failed to do. We have the role to create and see our own world according to how we see it.

What is the unique of being a youth? When we graduate we can not be really free. In fact, when we leave the university we will be more tied down. We can not just subvert things, for such point of time, because—chances are—our concerns would be finding a job, working on our savings and helping our families. We get to be more submissive and become docile warm bodies. We are aging and we are realizing the structure and we lose the youth spirit to express our innocent questions.

Ever spent a time with a 3-year old child? If you would spend a day with her, you would probably think of gluing her lips together because of her ‘to the nth power’ number questions. She would never stop asking about everything. The expected crude answer for the questions is simple: ‘That is how it works’. Basically the child challenges things because she has not yet assumed structure on her reality. However grown-ups already did—choices are reduced—norms are familiar and accepted. Think about it. We lose pieces of our huge and numerous aspirations of who we want to become bit by bit as we ladder age groups.

When I was very young I wanted to become a doctor—as clichéd as it sounds—or as a film director. As I stepped in high school I realized that hard sciences aren’t for me and film requires a lot of creativity and capital. Considering also my family’s capacity to spend for the education I needed for the road to any those professions. Other factors also put effect on my decisions. There is just no such thing as serendipity. Fate is weaved not by coincidence but in subtlety.

The more we age, the less we feel for agency over our reality—the more we realize prohibitions and limitations to our childish fantasies. When we grow up we have all the time to be ‘obedient’ to norms (which are presumed to be ‘just’) because we have to deal with ‘real’ things.

The saying that: ‘Ayusin mo muna sarili mo bago ang iba,’ can not be firmly applied. See, it is very hypocritical and it expounded no exact standard of what is ideally acceptable. If we are meant to conform to the norms, then why should we put effort to change it? If we give in, it would be hard to challenge it later. It doesn’t even follow that what is wrong is justifiable just because we are not yet that ready to be ‘right’. When can we say we are ready enough?

We should not be afraid to be over-angered by things around you that threaten youthful values. We have to prove where we stand. Antagonisms are everywhere—with our parents, the academe, media, fellow students and the grown-ups. We are not brainwashed just because we deviate from their standards. In fact those who call corrupted are the ones who readily gave up their youthful ideas to the ideological apparatuses. They were the first to be corrupted. They are the ones got brainwashed in the first place.

Yes we believe in academic freedom, but not all of our ideas are made out of a genuine preference of our subscription. Academic freedom ideally should function not to divide us among political camps but to help us define our own emancipation with less stigma for the interest of a student community. I believe that being cynical and apathetic is not inborn. We are conditioned to act so. Before we become apathetic let us at least know the interest of our cultural class. How can we be responsible citizens if in the first place we pay neglect to our own category? Before we become apathetic and hypocritical, let us first envision our reality in the perspective of a youth, as a UP student—that each can not be isolated from our bigger social concerns.

Let us not allow our freedom to be reduced to the freedom to consume goods or the freedom to park a vehicle. Let us not allow others do significant choices for us. We want to do it on our own. The saying ‘Ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng bayan!’ still holds though it sounds sappy and passé. Apathy will not lead us to anything worthy. Let us know how to stand upon these overwhelming social issues we are currently facing. Let us be involved and be conversant.

When you get stabbed, the least you could do is to be aware of it.

University Convocation

I attended the University Convocation yesterday sponsored by the UPD university student council. Well it was going well until one elite-looking hysteric ruined the forum. The girl was not that pretty to be considered cute of what she had done and said in that occasion. She was journalism major and a junior student. She was questioning the legal credibility and transparency of the claims of the student groups in relation to TOFI (tuition fee and other increases) and the withholding of funds for of The Philippine Collegian (the campuses student publication).

The girl was asking for papers and credentials that would actually only convince her to believe such statements about the administration of this university.

Her comments and inquiries were definitely off the topic. She was distracting the discussion and delaying it so that other questions would not be raised. I see she had hypocrisy with her. She was pretending to be concerned but her only aim was; to look good with her knowledge of journalism ethics as her lone standard in her inquiry and eventually put the event into a mess.
Questioning the student movement groups with respect to legitimacy is something stupid. Stupid, in relation to the present issue, the administration is using the legal and legitimate means to repress student rights; and lead to sufficing some goals that might not resonate the values of the studentry. If the administration or the dominant party uses legitimacy to undermine the stud entry then why should we be fighting for our rights? We are not law makers and we are students. Knowing that everything is not fair and equal between the student groups and the admin, why should we be restrained to express the sound injustices in our perspectives by considering equality? Equality is dysfunctional if both sides are not really equal in the first place.

The girl was very irrational and her mind was corrupted (did not go any depth on the issue. Not in all places we carry the law especially in scholarly discussions. She definitely adhered on the ethics of journalism crap. Ethics and norms of a technical discipline or a marketable profession is something backed up by the legitimate order. If we will just subject our actions relative to the legitimate order then we are do live 'our own truth'. We are letting the structure corrupt us. We know that the studentry is repressed by the admin but why should we be guided and limited, in standing for our rights, by a tool used against us? That is stupid for me. She was thinking that maybe what she had done made her any smarter. She might have thought how clever she looked at there over the microphone.

The question is not about legitimacy or being intelligent, it is how you stand on your issue. Legitimacy is a crude and surface level (not well thought) perspective to consider.

Assessing student movements with legitimate standards is very uncritical-thinking. You are just masturbating the norms and do not envision the perspective of your milieu, the student. There is really no such thing as a revolution that is dramatically obeying the law. So what was she part of the party envisioning if she were concerned about the issue? Was she in the perspective of a student in this institution or as an administrator, hypocrite, TV anchor?

She mentioned that having different views is good. I agree to that. But her inquiries were really irrelevant. Now her inquiries should have not been entertained. I believe in academic freedom. Okay she expressed her irrational doubt. She was freely let go to question and bullshit the students’ movement's stand. Now, that wasn't really what should be the topic for the discussion. She was not repressed but she repressed relevant ideas that should have been put on the table in the interest of the goals of the forum: to lay down the facts and know how student sees these events. Pretty much her inquiries don't resonate with mine. Hers and her company's ideas are so out of the field of discussion. Now, because she caused so much delay and trouble; she heatened up the room and made other people hysteric (because of her irrationality to assess the issue), she repressed viable ideas and just drained the time. She committed enough symbolic violence to spoil the campaign for a movement. Now, she might not believe about symbolic violence because mainly her standard is 'what is lawful and ethical crap.' The law doesn't recognize this as something oppressive but it [symbolic freedom] definitely does the same as hitting someone’s head with a mic stand. Her symbolic freedom wasn't really directed to the administration but to the campaigning party, the Collegian.

Lastly she wasn't clear of her standards and perspective. So possibly the crowd was confused that what she was saying was the divine norm for every action to be acceptable.

I pity the socialite lady. I wish she should have taken Sociology 10 before she could graduate and leave UP. She made me prejudices against Journ/CMC people. She was lucky the majority of the people there inside were not CSSP majors and its faculty. It would have been a laughing spectacle. She was lucky Sarah Raymundo, my sociology instructor wasn't around on that event, or else, she might regret she attended that forum. I feel bad that apathetic people still push to be apathetic and put down the emancipated active students. I find it funny. The apathetic don't care but the effort to attack the subversive. She is a dysfunction of the university. Then she is bragging about she is from UP. Ha. Think ate. Prove your status. UP journ majors have a lot of prestige so don't ruin it by your crude judgments. Know first about how movements work. Good diction and style just isn't everything.

Ethics is something not innately there. They are MADE; and there are reasons why they exist and the reason behind their nature.

I suggest if you are not convinced about this, find someone who understand student power better with their own perspectives--they don't claim the one-way-road-to-the-truth so you are not forced to be hegemonised unlike your ethics and the admin. Know more about student power. More is still behind prejudices and distortions made by the media, our parents and the apathetic.

I want to make clear that this not just a hate letter but an invitation to understand more on student power as a social text.

I stand against TOFI (tuition fee and other increase). Uphold the Philippine Collegian's autonomy.
Let it not be, that in our present residence in this institution, a turning point of the massive negligence to public welfare will take place.

Sumbungan

Pakonti-konti ay nagiging sumbungan ko na itong blog mga bagay bagay na personal. Failed exams... mga frustrations... mga kabaliwang nakakatawa para sa akin lamang.... at mga katangahan.... ewan ko kung bakit....

Nauso ang sentimental moments

Kanina lang ang exam ko sa math 11. Eh kagabi 2 pm na ako natulog para mag-aral kuno. Kaya lang pakiramdam ko bagsak ako kasi lahat ko nasimulan wala akong natapos ng test item. Galing ano. (kunyari masaya pero may poot sa loob ng chest) Yun.

Pero ang istorya ay hindi tungkol doon! Tungkol ito sa nangyari pagkatapos ng exam... nang medyo pauwi ako. Yung nangyari eh naglakadlakad ako sa may AS papuntang Vinzons. Medyo cloudy. Medyo may hangin... Medyo nililipad ang mgay tuyong dahon. Medyo may mood. Makulimlim ang paligid... Mabagal ang mga taong nagjojogging. Medyo may naririnig akong kanta parang sentimental pero para sa mga broke na tao.... Nasa music video ako... well feeling lang... parang feeling ko kinukunan ako ng 35-mm film motion picture camera. nagsesentimental kasi babagsak ako sa math 11... parang may emosyon sa mukha ko kanina... nagpagkamalan ata akong baliw na mabagal na naglalakad sa may harap ng educ habang ng slowslow-s--ll--o-o-o-ww motion ang mga galaw at ang mga lingon. Medyo tingin sa malapit... yuyuko... tingin sa malayo.... titingala sa mga sanga ng mga puno sa acad oval... baliw.

Sa madaling salita para akong tanga kanina.

I am a Bit Down

Maybe it is just bad luck or maybe something else. I was frustrated to know that I didn’t get uno for Socio 10. Well I admit I am a bit conceited and I had a very ambitious expectation. I just thought that I had invested much on this subject. I am desperate not to pull my GWA down because of my failing Math 11. I do not really aspire for a 1.0 if I think I have done wrong. I have no problem with such issue. It was just, the pressure gets to me: that I am a sociology major and I could not get an 1.0 for a socio GE.

I am failing Math 11 and I am not sure if I will pass. I might not go home for the semester break this year because there is no power in my province. The power restoration will take months. And my vacation is already ruined.

I feel that my efforts weren’t awarded the way I expected. I am regressing. My writing had already started to wear out. I am becoming more stupid everyday. I feel that I am losing hope to be in good standing. I could not write good essays and papers. I could not manage my time because of my complicated class schedule. I waste a lot of time. I am decaying.

I would get through this soon. It is just that I haven’t slept last night for a paper. I am really tired. But never bother this entry. I am very far from suicidal. Ha-ha.

Understood

I had this final rites from a provincial org just last Saturday. The days before the event, I really never understood its purpose. I kept deconstructing it. I always question it. I thought that the certain stage of membership could not really attend total loyalty to the organization.
But after the final rites, it really made sense to me. Now I beleive that agalma could explain this--that someone outside something--a ritual, a belief or anything similar-- is always not percieving thing with the right eyes, so prejudices arise.
I have these co-applicats who really were not very tempered when it comes in expressing their dissenting opinions. One--whom irritated me much--talked about liberalism and other Marxist stuff--that actually did not make sense in that very situation.
The fact there was, me myself, did not feel the right to practice freedom of expression and democracy. I had to play by their rules because I took the choice to participate in that activity. So basically it is my prerogative to quit if I don't like the things that were expected to happen.
I realised that there is better to understand things when once you are inside it. It is an agalma thing...

Wasting their Chances

I, myself, am sometimes guilty of this, depending on the object of reference.

Sometimes, or most of the times I get resentful with those students who really have the resources, capital and all the means. They are fortunate that their parents provide them with this and with that. They have laptops, computers, super-fast DSLs and all the conveniences that help them to move a lot more easy with things at school. At least their efforts are maximized and not compromised with the hassles that these conveniences counter. If they really want to get down on their academics, they can easily deal with things that are needed to be taken care of.

On some instances, I feel the grudge on people who really have the means, all the resources and the convenience but sadly do not envision their acts towards academics. Also those who do not provide the rationality of their choice in failing to adhere from the expectations on them, as students, to get involved in the production of knowledge or at least acquisition of it as a minimum (at least to puppet knowledge). This is very irritating if you would find out that many of these people are in state-subsidized universities.

These people pass state university exams, for example UP. This university is known for having the exams quite tough pass, too tough to admit all who aspire. However, I know of some people who passed the exams are just wasting, spoiling their privilege. Just because they passed the exams, they have the right to bullshit everything, then consider themselves as people of high intellectual capital, and do nothing. They just pass the exam. They just got high with the single damned exam.

Evan the title ‘Iskolar ng Bayan’ is not entitled to everybody. Not everybody who passed the exams deserves it. It should be constantly earned.

What is sad about this is that: there, outside, there are more people, who I think, deserve more of our positions here in the university, especially those apathetic students. Some people outside should have been in the place of some of us because of the exam. Some of them needed the access to our educational system more than the apathetic students maybe because it is relatively low-cost and the academic excellence and freedom, which seem to be hard to be found all in the same school.

The people whom I referred to as apathetic are wasting a lot of advantages, which are entitled to them. Subtly, there is the need that these advantages are to be paid back with their expectations as students, or, at least a little modest will of it.

What more irritates me is that some of these students reason out of such dispositions towards academics with the freedom of choice, celebration of autonomy or maybe they would say: “I have the right and the means, why should you care?” That has got to hurt.

Please DO NOT get me wrong about this. I do not hold grudge against these people whom I criticize. This is not a hate letter and I do not curse people and resort to a class damnation. I just want to raise a query to scrutinize thing that fail to reach out stigma because we blur our vision towards freedom. Freedom is good. However, the question is, do we really deserve it? I myself do not want to give a damn on others choices and dispositions but I criticize on the rationality or the logic of these choices. Do their freedoms parallel their duties and expectations?

What I want to point out here, as I was saying a while ago, that we need to take a look out of own milieu—that our actions are still subject to a bigger social structure. Some people use golden toothpicks however a large chuck of population try to endure uncertainties and high levels of danger just to be fed for a single meal.

Think about it!

*Healthy and responsible antithetical comments are accepted. I want to hear from your perspective.

I just thought

I admit I was a little carried away on what I had discussed about the marginalised workers in UP Diliman. I was writing without really being eclectic--or even considering about the word 'balance.'

I was thinking if we are going to fight for the rehiring of those janitors, what happens to the current janitors who where hired by carebest? I think they will be laid-off also... So I thought to solve the problem will still end up another problem. If they will be rehired there will be still workers that will be displaced off their jobs. The thing there is that, pursuing their interest will still employ actions, that will affect to the current workers, the problems that they themselves had also suffered.

But I have nothing against those displaced workers because they actually were working in this institution for more than decade--some more that that.

I am not withdrawing anything from the previuos blog entry but somehow I think of these...

Things are just not that simple.