The Construct by Alex Maximo

On to three days of God-knows-what

Alex @ July 30, 2007 | | Work | Comments (0)

I’ll be in the DynEd workshop for the next three days starting today. Later, to be exact. I’m actually blogging from UP Diliman.

The college has just recently inaugurated the Computer Room and that’s where I’ll be spending my next three days. Jeez. I can say I’m not too excited about it. I have my evaluations scheduled next week and they expect me to hand in my lesson plans by Thursday. I don’t even get time to prepare myself and my classes mentally for next week.

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Tags: DynEd, Rant, Seminars, Teaching, UP, Work

Still feeling the pangs of being the new guy

Alex @ July 29, 2007 | | Work | Comments (0)

I thought I was moving on nicely until two days ago.

I went into the department office to check my pigeon hole just in case one of my students left something for me there. A late assignment. Or some absentee trying to sneak in a class activity. My pigeon hole was empty but what greeted me instead were a few of my old mentors who, as some of the other junior faculty would describe, were waiting “to ambush some helpless prey.”

Needless to say, I was the prey that morning. The department needed some young blood to be present at the inauguration of the college’s computer room which was sponsored by the Villars (specifically, the wife of the one in Senate) scheduled Saturday. Since getting people to go to such functions has been an age-old problem with academics, they were “forcing” people to go. Being a newbie, there’s not a lot one can do when swarmed by the oldies.

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Tags: Rant, Teaching, UP, Work

Slacking off and loving it

Alex @ July 26, 2007 | | Personal, Work | Comments (1)

Heck. I haven’t really been a slacker ever since high school. But now, I think I’m degenerating to one.

Yesterday, I had to go to UP for the meeting of the college committee for the website. It was just a good two-hour meeting but I felt so bushed afterward. I decided to head home immediately with the intent of “checking formal compositions.”

However, thanks to my earlier trip to SM North, I had with me a set of new guitar strings. So as soon as I got home, I never bothered with the papers, I started to work on my guitar. Cleaning (yummy fingerboard gunk), polishing, and restringing it took me a good hour or so and playing it again after all these months ate up another two. By the time I was finished, I had to go back to writing that after I finished my blogging rounds, I just went straight to bed and slept.

I made a note to myself to start handing back the papers this afternoon but I guess I won’t be. I’ve been too meticulous in going over them so a one composition is taking me around twenty minutes to check and grade. And given that pace, it’d take me around six hours to finish what’s left.

Am I worried? No. Let them wait for their *ahem* grades. At least they’d get the benefit of having their works really read. Am I feeling guilty for slacking off? No. I just hated the fact that my finger speed and strength aren’t how they used to be.

Tags: Guitar, Personal, Slacking-Off, Teaching, UP, Work

Time-space warped by the SONA

Alex @ July 24, 2007 | | Personal | Comments (0)

Classes in UP Diliman were suspended yesterday due to the SONA. And that warped my grasp of space and time.

It felt weird to see the same faces I met last Friday today. It’s like deja vu. I honestly found the whole schedule glitch unsettling. I now stare at my schedule and the next two weeks seem like a rough and tumble period for me.

I won’t be meeting my class for the last days of the month next week to attend some e-Learning seminar to be conducted to members of the department. After that week, I’m up for observation by the Guidance and Evaluation Committee. Whatever it’s worth, it’s still scary to have two senior faculty watching your every move inside the classroom. So given that and the seminar, I only have two meetings to settle things with my classes so that we’d be on schedule. And because of the SONA, I have to do it double time.

I’m still neck deep in student’s compositions to actually do other things (like restringing my guitar, clean every nook and cranny of my room, workout, etc…) except blog. Haha.

For some reason, I’m really feeling totally unfocused and unmotivated lately. I just hope I get a third wind just in time for the observations. Or else, I’m f*cked. Haha.

Tags: Personal, Rant, Teaching, UP