01.11.07
if im not a teacher…
Late last year, I took a lot of jeepney rides and Saturday afternoon walks. I was, as usual, indulging in bouts of self-pity again.
And one of the really persistent thoughts in my mind then, aside from the sorry state of my love life, was my career. I kept thinking about what my life would be like right now had I heeded my dad’s advice during the second semester of my freshman year in college to shift to Biology. The semester before that, I did an excellent performance in my Bio 1 class, and though the subject can hardly be considered as enough indicator of my potential and promise as a student of the hard sciences, it was pretty decent work for someone who never really fully understood the intricacies of the Krebs cycle and Genetics. He has always wanted someone in the family to become a doctor. And as the eldest, he thought he could move me into thinking that I’m cut out to be one. Unfortunately for him, I developed a different interest and my mind, sad to say, just can not accommodate all those medical facts. The ‘calling’ went to my sister who has the perfect drive, motivation, ambition, and intellectual capacity to guarantee her success in medical school.
I’m a teacher now. But in my moments of despondency, I wonder about how my life would be like had I really shifted to Biology and gone on to medical school after graduation. My sister’s now headed to med school, and I so envy her because after five years of poking dead bodies, doing rounds, she’d have a title attached to her name. Moreover, she knows exactly what she is, knows exactly what her job entails. I, on the other hand, would still probably be wondering if my life’s purpose is really in the academe or if I’m better off working somewhere else.
Of course, I wouldn’t allow my life to drift like this, aimless and utterly pathetic in my own standards. That’s just a thought. I value this phase of my life right now, my momentary stop-over as a teacher in this lifetime. Because, had I pursued a different path, I wouldn’t have…
… met my first bunch of students to call me Ms Chinky Eyes and Sweet Smile.
… received a friendly proposition from my students to become my
boyfriends, one for every academic year of their stay in the university.
… met Dyqa, my cosmic sister in this chaotic universe.
… met Bao Luo who’s teaching me Chinese and helping me snag the
preppy chinito guys.
… discovered that I’m a sucker for intense, passionate eyes, a sexy body,
guy-next-door charms, and discussions on rationality, humanistic
philosophy, truth and relativity.
… known Chan – and every memory is worth keeping.
… known Dodi, the only one who calls me Rise, and who knows me too
well and understands me too well, the first one who wasn’t intimidated
at all and who managed to break past my barriers.
… met Kti, a sis, a friend who renders me speechless with her unique Kti
Alibanban charms.
… known Nica (the cutie with the hots for her former instructor – you can
take a lesson or two from me, or I can recommend you to some of the
students I know..hehe), Daphe (haciendera-cum-professional online
player), Bernard (hindi kasawian ang walang girlfriend, friend. Peace!),
and the fresh batch of Sibolites, friends and orgmates.
… Thursday coffee dates with Sherwin, PJ, Lorie, Ranell and Jeff—who,
because he’s the richest now among the five of us – buys us a bowl or
two of popcorn to go with the caramel or mocha frappucino. Thank
God for small blessings like Jeff’s benevolent heart! Hehe…
… free Purefoods Ham every Christmas – it’s CDC’s Christmas gift to us!
… a payslip as long and as big as a one-half length wise sheet of paper, but
with numbers — never mind! At least I’m earning!
… known the company of Mia, Julz, Harold, Sasa, JP, Edmund, Leah – my
former instructors, now my colleagues. Of course, there’s our senior faculty
– people I never dared cross or disobey during my undergrad years, and
whom I still don’t want to cross or disobey even now.
… known someone who asked me outright if I ever have crushes on students
… a daily greeting of ‘Good morning, Clarisse!”
… known the joy of projects and honorariums and all-expenses paid trips to
Zambales and other places.
… experienced the excitement of a teacher’s first-day high when you
wanted to render them speechless with your tight-lipped, unsmiling,
mataray image of a terror professor. Hehe..
… experienced the first month eagerness and enthusiasm to check papers,
scripts, tapes (even bring them at home on weekends) and the fifth
month falling out of your love affair with said papers, scripts and tapes.
… known the joy of giving essay exams (because they’re easier to make)
and the torture of checking them.
… experienced the beat-the-deadline-otherwise-you-get-a-memo hype
during submission of grades.
… long jeepney rides and Saturday afternoon walks despairing over my life.
… met all those students — from the punks to the rich, preppy, classy kids,
from the inexcusably late to the overly obsessive compulsive types, from
the GCs to the ‘i-don’t-give-a-****’, from the charming and friendly to the
utterly stiff, aloof, professional types, from the genius to the average.
… an office with a view of the trees and the parking lot, a desk with metal
caddies and pen holders, a steel cabinet containing all my lesson notes
and handouts, complete with an assortment of magnets, and a
corkboard with my pictures and the pictures of my ‘special friends’.
… known how it is to teach at my dream university –no matter the
workload, the rigid tenure policies, the red tape, the dilapidated
buildings and outdated equipment and yes, even the pay.
On the other hand, had I gone to med school, I would have met a lot of those smart, preppy, sexy, clean-looking, chinito doctors I like so much.
But I don’t believe in regrets. So I try not to regret missing out on the smart, preppy, sexy, clean-looking, chinito doctors. 
