Mrs. Brightside

The hottest issue in the country right now is the surrender of alleged pork barrel queen Janet Napoles. She surrendered to the President on Wednesday night. She was initially brought to the Camp Crame and was transferred last night to the Makati City Jail. She was not placed in one of the cells though. Instead, she was locked up in an air-conditioned room in the compound. People are complaining about the "special treatment" she's been getting. I think I might need to cut down my Facebook visits today because everyone seems to feel so strongly about it. And I find it annoying. I agree with what the President has done. It was best for him to allow Napoles to surrender in Malacanang. I also do not find anything wrong in making sure that Napoles is locked up in a secure place. I do not think she is getting any special treatment. People need to understand that she is a high risk and high profile suspect. We should all look at the bigger picture and the end goal here. We ca...

The past month has been exhausting. We had a lot of visitors. But don't get me wrong. I love having friends and relatives around although they make me miss home more. 😔 My body is on the verge of breaking down due to over fatigue. But I just need to say some things I'm grateful for lest I forget. These things help me ignore the exhaustion. 1. Jesus for calming down my stormy waters. It was far from perfect but it was better than the last. 2. My sweet students for making me laugh or smile. 3. The energy to take care of the sick husband. 4. The strength to clean the house. 5. The power to cook nilaga last night and sinigang tonight. 6. The heart-to-heart talk with the hubby. July has a lot more days left. I can only hope and pray that Jesus will sustain me for the rest of the semester.

Twas a weekend well spent. For a change, the hubby and I decided to have a stay-cation. We normally go out on weekends. Most of the time, you can find us in the malls. We eat good food and we usually end up shopping and draining the coffers. This weekend, we stayed at home. Did some cleaning and spent the rest of Saturday watching Season 1 of Dexter. We started watching Dexter when we moved here. We caught the re-runs of Season 6. We watched Season 7 and we're now waiting for Season 8, the final season. When we went home last month, my brother downloaded the earlier seasons for us so we can catch up. We finished the first season this afternoon. The story's clearer now. Hope to watch the rest of the episodes soon. I survived the past week. I had 10 classes, 1 class more than the normal load. That translates to 20 hours of talking, with 6 hours each on Thursday and Friday. Yes, my timetable is horrible. When I was about to conduct my last class on Friday, I literally felt m...

I am so tired I can't even think of a title for this post. I had my first lecture this afternoon where I had 300+ students. It was draining and exhausting. I can prepare all I want but at the end of the day, these kids will still choose to talk and talk and take pictures of themselves. I hope I'll survive the 7 remaining lectures. Especially those on Thursdays when I have 4 hours of class in the morning and 2-hour lecture in the afternoon. Then I have another 6-hour day on Friday. Apart from there being a risk of me losing my voice, I am also at risk of mixing things up. This week for instance, I'm covering 4 different topics. Same goes for next week. Oh well, I know God will only give me what I can bear so I should be able to do this. Aja!

I just finished one semester of teaching. Technically speaking, the sem's not yet over because grades have not been released yet and there can still be appeals and last minute changes. But as far as teaching's concerned, my sem's over. It was a good ride. There were moments when I felt that I could not connect to my students. I admit that those times were really frustrating. But God knows that I need re-affirmation once in a while. So when I start feeling down, He sends me good vibes - students complimenting me for replying to their texts and e-mails immediately or students sharing with me cookies that they baked because they love me or students bringing me Filipino treats because they know I miss them or getting good feedback for work that I've done. If God knows hu das not pay, He also knows who needs some TLC. Hehe. One thing I learned from my first semester is that you should never judge a book by its cover. Oo, cliche. But this was so evident the past few month...

Dear S, We talked this afternoon because you had poor results for your tests. I asked you why and you told me that you had a problem. When I probed deeper, you told me that you broke up with your girlfriend. I asked you if she's from the same school and you said yes. You told me that she found another guy (an older one) and she left you after being together for five months. This hurt you so much, that it even affected your studies. I told you not to take these things too seriously. And you told me, "But it was my first." Ahhh...first love. We could have talked all afternoon about first loves, first heartbreaks, but I would not have fulfilled my role as your advisor if I did that. So I could only tell you that there will be more girlfriends coming your way, that you should just charge this thing to experience and learn from it. I was just amazed at how a young boy like you can be so affected by one girl. But then I recall my own firsts and then I fully understand you...