Merry Xmas to One And All!

Merry Christmas to one and all, and Happy New Year too. If your year were good this year, there’d be no reason why it won’t be so much better next year. It would be, I am sure.

This greeting goes to all my blogger friends and to all my blog readers out there. Holiday greetings to one and all.

This would also serve as some sort of apology as to why I have not been blogging as frequent as I should be. I’ve been so busy with my new vocation as a University lecturer. While I thought at first—-since I would be just a new entry into the teaching staff—-that I wouldn’t be immersed into more demanding tasks and work schedule, I was a bit mistaken. Teaching is not like many other occupation where the initial phases would be more on orientation processes, taking on light tasks and schedules, saying hi’s and hello’s to everyone in the office. In many ways, the initial phases of teaching is one of the most critical point in the overall approach to the job, sizing up the classes in terms of number and in terms of the amount of preparation needed, where too much becomes ultimately unviable (as learning would not be fulfilled to the hilt) and too little of it would mean lackluster instruction. It’s like walking on a tightrope I felt sometimes there.

It was of note how “academic freedom” meant that a teacher virtually has total control of what he or she has to feed the students, in relation to the title and scope of the subject course, and by this, I had to scramble for materials, doing intensive and extensive research in such a short window of time and opportunity. It was of much luck that despite I am just a newbie in this profession; I was able to collate and compile much of the needed materials and information that I needed to fulfill my lecturing tasks.

It was I think of good opportune that my short but very memorable stint as guest lecturer in the past, particularly in the Alternative Class program of my other alma mater, Ateneo de Zamboanga, had somehow helped me in giving important prior perspective on the business of teaching, providing me insights and helpful experience for such. That at times, I felt like I have just slid from one phase to another, that I am in my own water and have always been there, and have just gone for awhile and then returned in the end.

And in the short period that I have been in this job, I am been exalted that it becomes somehow a wonderful experience for me to become part of a student’s education and growth, and ultimately in his or her future success. It is a wonderful experience altogether. I have the most gratitude to my colleagues in the workplace for being so welcoming to my presence and have provided me great support in the time that I am just learning the main tasks of teaching like an infant, still walking unsteadily, still striving and struggling somehow. I thank our dean Prof. Eddie Ladja for this, King Sali, Sir Perry, Sir Saymaran, Sir Kams, Sir Al, Dams, Choy, Ka Dayyang, Ustadz Bulkhari and Ustadz Tanjilul for treating me with all kindness and friendship that there could be had.

Merry Christmas again to one and all. I’d be back to regular blogging once this “adjustment” period is done and over with. More power to you all.