Sunday, January 29, 2006

New Year, New Happenings.

This day was, like, the longest school day ever. Normally, Saturdays would last for 4 hours, max. RLE is the only subject on Saturdays and we always spend the whole morning only. But today was different, we had no professor -- we only had to finish the tallying of the survey tools from the community then create master tables for everyone to fill. I didn't expect it to last as long as it did. By lunchtime, everyone was almost done tallying their own surveys. At about 1:30 or so, A couple of our blockmates started constructing the tables with their new markers and 12-inch rulers on a roll of large, crispy brown paper. Hours later, more and more of our blockmates are starting to help out and I was already writing down, in pencil, our group's tallied results. Soon enough, people started to realize that the construction was taking such a long time; the original writers had their hands blackened with already-then re-filled markers and their 12-inch rulers that already had black sides, a handful of people not doing anything related to the schoolwork were getting bored and impatient. It was already 5 p.m.. We didn't finish an hour after that. As I come to think of it, we hadn't really achieved the necessary information inside the tables. But our professor let us go at 7 p.m. -- Not exactly the earliest and most pleasant time of departure from school, huh? After the longest minutes of squatting and standing amidst the discussionof all the wrong things we wrote in the master table and the chaos of me and my blockmates continuously fumbling on our own tally sheets and markers and walking the distance between my school and the nearest train station and standing in the cold, hard, shiny stairs of the mall where my shobe and I had to wait for our father to pick us up and standing in front of the bank in the ground floor of our building while desperately trying to listen to the endless speech of my father who wouldn't let us go, my feet were screaming in horrible agony about half an inch below my big toes (where the line of my doll shoes touches my feet). Now, I'm having a very difficult time walking in shoes or even in my flattest, most comfortable slippers so much that I have to walk around the house barefoot if I want to risk my health or wear socks. I prefer the latter. My feet are bruised where I told you it hurts. .:sob:.
But it's the Chinese New Year. Cheers -- Happy New Year to me. We ate Pansit and Lechon and drank Red Wine for Noche Buena. Great food but not the greatest drink I've had in my life. My mom gave us little card-like things that we had to keep in our purse for "safety." When I got hold of that I kissed it and kept it in my fluffy pink wallet only to find out that both my shobe and achi had done the same thing I did -- they kissed theirs, too, during different times. Apparently, those are the kinds of things I put more of my interest in to than listening to our mother telling us stories about her (ew, gross.) sex life, which, is so eerie.
I vowed to myself that this year is going to be MY year.. Though I have nothing even as much as the slightest idea how I would pull that off.

*~*

| 1:55 AM | |

Sunday, January 22, 2006

irksome pushy people.

I don't know if we really had to come to school yesterday. All that was left for us to do was to tally the survey tools we had in hand. The start of the day was normal, we were in our classrooms and almost all of us were in our seats chatting and finishing our survey results. After a few hours, the groups started talking about tallying. Suddenly, the noise that was coming from just chatting turned into loud, almost-high-pitched voices of yelling and bickering over how to tally.

Decision 1: Tallying will start by pair (or by block). Each pair has about 6-20 households to tally, and there are 9 pairs. After all the pairs are done tallying their survey tools, the 9 pairs or 18 people (from the 2nd immersion group) will break into 4 groups (1 group for each page). Each of the 4 groups will add all the frequencies and it's over.

PROS: Results will be more accurate (especially in page 1 where everyone's having trouble with the Estimated Monthly Income and Occupation) since the pair who surveyed a certain household knows the answers better than anybody else.

CONS: It will be time-consuming. When it is time to combine every block's data, each block's frequency for a certain answer will be added to the next and to the next and to the next, making it 180 answers to add (per answer) and approximately 10 answers per table with about 14 tables per group (times 4 groups, 1 group for every page of the survey tool). Plus, if one pair is confused with Estimated Monthly Income or Occupation then it can also be the problem of every pair.

Outcome of primary tallying -- 180 survey tools to combine.

Decision 2: Each pair will finish their survey, answers will be uniformed so that everyone knows what this or that is or where it will fall under. Tallying will start with the 4 groups (as mentioned in decision 1). 9 pairs x 20 survey tools (for the benefit of decision 1) = 180 survey tools. Then, these 180 survey tools will be tallied by approximately 4-5 people then it's over.

PROS: Problems about Occupation and Estimated Monthly Income will be contained on group 1 only (because group 1 is responsible for page 1 where these two are under). If the survey tools are finished with uniformity before tallying, there would be no problem at all. Even if there are 180 survey tools to tally, there are 4-5 people to work on it.

CONS: If, and only if the survey tools aren't finished with uniformity, the group responsibe for say, page 1 will have a hard time figuring out where to put the data. Take note, that situation will only happen if the survey tools are not finished by the pair with uniformity of the answers.

Outcome of primary tallying (or for this case, just tallying) -- 4 sets of final tallied papers (1 set per page or group).

THE VERDICT: I prefer decision 2, clearly. It's easier, more organized and quicker. But some people maybe just don't understand how decision 2 works. Or rather, they are so caught up trying to use their choice of decision 1 that they can't even try to listen to decision 2. So in this case, since some people are so narrow-minded, we did it via decision 1.

We didn't finish it even if we took the whole day, until 4 pm. The only thing we finished was the primary tallying. Talk about time-consuming. It's frustrating how some people can't give just one minute to listen to another person. I get decision 1, the people who wanted decision 2 get that. But the people who want decision 1 keep pressing that it would be more accurate and I reckon it's because they really don't get decision 2.

*sigh* It really irks me how they kept on pressing their point and yelling and butting in when another person's explaining. It was so hard to keep pressing myself for other people to stop speaking or rather, yelling in the middle of somebody else's turn. These people with hard and narrow minds should really think for a moment. They are so unfair. But they are still my friends and classmates, hate to say it but I can't do anything about it now, can I?

*~*

| 10:24 PM | |

Friday, January 20, 2006

Immersion.

2:20 p.m. HEALTH ECON class ended. RLE groups 3 & 4 start chatting about the upcoming immersion to happen in a few hours. I feel sick about going to Antipolo and stay for two nights.

3:10 p.m. ELINOR and I decide to run to SM to buy her stockings--she forgot to bring one pair.

3:20 p.m. ELINOR and I leave school without our bags, just money.

3:40 p.m. We arrive UERM. Picked our bags up from KAY, CESS and OJ in the canteen.

3:45 p.m. RLE groups 3 &4 leave school.

3:50 p.m. Immersion groups unload from a jeep. I fall and bruise my leg. The nail in my shoe's heel was pulled up.

4:00 p.m. Immersion group members impatiently wait for the next train to SANTOLAN.

4:15 p.m. We arrive in SANTOLAN station. PATRICK, KENN, and BRYANN look for a ride to BRGY. DELA PAZ. The ride is uncomfortable. ELINOR and I feel homesick.

4:40 p.m. Groups 3 & 4 arrive in the staff house. We all forgot our waivers. We were asked to text our parents for a verification that they know we're in a community immersion program. My heels start to hurt.

5:45 p.m. Community Immersion formally begins.

8:30 p.m. I take a bath. 10 minutes, max.

8:40 p.m. I feel refreshed but still convinced it's hot.

9:00 p.m. Immersion groups pray the rosary as ordered by CI PROF. LIM.

11:30 p.m. PROF. BUTCON and PROF. MOLO discuss presentation of data from the survey tools floated per pair.

12:30 a.m. Sleeping time.

** Times are based only upon approximation or guessing.

I wasn't able to sleep much, I kept waking up in the middle of each our, maybe, becuase I felt so uncomfortable sleeping in a mat on the floor with a teeny-tiny pillow. Thursday was a not-so-work day. All we had to do was to go back to our respective blocks in Phase V and finish up the houses we weren't able to interview the last time. We only had about 4-5 houses left and only we were only able to gather 1. About 10:15 a.m. Elinor left for the preparationof our lunch. I stayed with Patrick and helped our other blockmates finish their surveys. Btw, we are so deprived of the usual pleasures of good food so we had to sneak in a bakery on the opposite side of Block 10 to eat. We spotted ICED GEMS and it was divine. I call it my "Nostalgic Food." Once I started eating pieces of eat, it brought back my childhood memories. It was like the food that only existed when I was a little girl. We ate fish for lunch. I didn't enjoy. The rest of the day was boring. There was nothing to do. By 4:45 p.m., we were all dressed for the team building activity at 5 p.m.. The games were really fun and exhausting. We all felt so dirty but we enjoyed alot. :) This night was different; I noticed that there were unusually more stars in the sky than there ever was. We all took a bath while counting down the hours of our departure from Antipolo to our homes. I had a better sleep last night. Everytime I would wake up in the morning, it would get so cold that I'm shivering. We were all ready to go by 5 a.m. and departed as planned. By 7:10 a.m. I was back home. I missed EVERYTHING. I've learned to appreciate my bed, the food in our house and especially our shower.
BED - It can never be easy to lie flat on your back against a mat that is placed flat on the floor.
FOOD - Although, I always complain that the food-cooking cycle's really short, At least I could eat all the meat I want and I could drink iced water or softdrinks.
SHOWER - One pale of water per person??? Oh, and we had to pump the water up ourselves in the street perpendicular to the staff house's.

I don't ever want to do that again. It's bad enough we have to go there even without sleeping.

*~*

| 9:47 PM | |

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Rants of a Whiner.

Since I added an event in my calendar that would last for 3 days, I remembered that it's our immersion--this week. It's somewhere in Antipolo that would take me forever to get to the place. By myself, that is. It's a good thing, I'm not goung there by myself. Anyway, I hate it. We really don't need it. Just because the school's got a dingy, dirty, teeny-tiny staff house they think level 2 students should go there and sleep for two nights to "experience life in a community." I think it's bs. I mean, I am sure not one of us would EVER want to work in that kind of place. Crooked roads, dog turds in the way, legions of airborne dust, mosquitoes everywhere, scorching heat of the afternoon sun, no tap water, the list goes on. I was there last thursday and I got sick. The community's too much for my body. And I know I'm healthier than I am weak. I rarely get sick, but surprise, surprise! That one-day experience killed my usual immunity against colds and flu. Then now we'd have to sleep there for 2 nights and work during the days?? Oh, I have failed to mention this impropriety, but there aren't beds, the girls' room is across the boy's and there are no beds! Nada, zero, zilch, for the girls. AND there are like 14 girls out of 18 students to stay and sleep in a room the size of the quarter of a high school classroom. *sigh*
I'm sorry I'm such a whiner. I can't help but rant about it. I know nothing I'd say would change anything about it so there's actually no point. But you know, it's good to keep the rants and whines out every once in a while without speaking about it (I'm typing). Anyway, my dreamboat isn't there. :(

*~*

| 11:39 PM | |

Saturday, January 14, 2006

When Confusion Meets Worrying

I was supposed to go on community duty today. My blockmates and I were supposed to meet in the last train station at 7 a.m.. The time I woke up: 7 a.m.. It's hard to try or even imagine to get there as fast as I can when I live in Manila and that's, like, the other end of the world for me. Mommy didn't wake me up, too. She insisted I don't go to school today because I had just gone from a fever. You might get a relapse, she says. I called a blockmate and he told me I hsould go to the school infirmary to secure a medical certificate of my condition while he'll tell the professors in the community that I'll try to be there in the afternoon. The problem is, I could not get a medical certificate from school because fact is, I'm not sick any longer. What more can the physician diagnose other than that I am well? It's just the relapse that both my mom and I are worrying about. Even if I go to the Infirmary right now, what would I say? That I need a medical certificate because I was sick yesterday and that I might just have a relapse today? I'm so confused and worried right now. I'm dressed to go to the community right now; I'm just waiting for their signal to let me go there this afternoon. I'm both confused and worried. Confused because I don't know what the hell I should do. Should I go to the school infirmary and try to ask for a certificate? Should I go straight to the community? Should I call my blockmate and ask him again? or should I just sit here and wait for his sms? I'm worried because I don't know what I should do if I am marked absent for today. Would I have to make it up, pay a fine and do thrice the duty? Would they not allow me ever to go there? Would I be laid-off and join some other group? I'm really worried. I've been worried about all this since I woke up at 7. I haven't slept since although I could have. Confusion and worry just take the best of me right now and it's hard to comprehend what I should really do.

*~*

| 11:22 AM | |