SEMBREAK IS FINALLY OVER!!! Walang pasok!

School Ain't All Academics and Sports...
A tribute to a professor who has defined this road I take... this road of mine less traveled...

You can learn a lot about life from your college professors... if you really try hard to make the connection. People have stories to tell, experiences to share and advices to give. I've been under this specific professor's tutelage for 2 sems already. Yes, you peeps know him, and I've mentioned his name in this blog a few weeks ago. Anyway, it's Sir Delante, if some of you still don't know him. I really don't know his first name (tsk tsk), but I just call him Sir.

He's been giving a lot of insights to our class and other people's classes as well. He makes these "plug-ins" during his discussions and I've heard the "plug-ins" in just bits and pieces. I wanted to know the whole story or the whole deal of it, so I decided to connect. I've always been fond of the Why's and How's of things... someone once told me I should have pursued a degree in Psychology... God forbid.

This morning, we had an "exam" and I was really perspiring while solving 3 difficult problem sets. Difficult, because Sir never discussed those lessons in class. I somehow managed due to my firm math background, but most of my seatmates were copying my solution and Sir saw them do it, so he asked me to pass my paper and I got exempted. What a deal! Why not?... so I passed my paper and got a piso for that matter... hehehe.

I was lingering around campus after the exam, since it was still 2 hours away before my sundo was supposed to fetch me. In my aimless wanderings (since I just have the knack for walking), I bumped into Sir Delante again near the ECE department. He was going to have lunch and he asked whether I've had lunch. I haven't yet, so knowing Sir, I decided to join him for lunch... at Joven's Grill at A.S. Fortuna. Haven't eaten there yet, so I was in for a first-timer's bite. We rode a jeep to Foodland and walked the rest of the way there. Malapit lang naman, so we walked. We had their eat-all-you-can buffet worth 110 each. So sulit talaga... bottomless drinks, bottomless food and there were scallops, fruits, salads and lots of grilled meats. We met also several taga-TC there since today's the graduation of the Octoberians and many of them had their post-grad party there.

Hearts of Fire and Ice

Over lunch from 12 to around 2, Sir Delante and I swapped some "tales" --- sounds so cheezy... pasensya na po... and I really got to know why he speaks of such things in class. I saw a generous, kind-hearted and merciful being behind that shell. He has helped so many people get their lives back... helping friends of his who used to have barely a meal to eat a day into successful businessmen residing in Australia with cars to buy and mansions to build... but in the end, those ingrates left him in the shadows. I could see in him the perfect example of a modern-day matchmaker who never found his match... the construction engineer who never got to own his own building. He built empires for others, but never even got to build one for himself. It's reality and the way it sounds, it sucks and makes us feel emotions of pity, sadness or disappointment. But his generosity brings forth emotions of pride and joy that encompasses all the negatives. I'm sure there are many out there who have such tales to tell.

He may not have taught me much in my Engineering Materials and Control Systems subjects. Frankly speaking, I learned nothing, sorry Sir. It was all mathematics as I once said before that a grade 3 pupil could solve. It's what scares me, because the upperclassmen have told me that the 2 subjects he taught me, especially the latter, are very important in my thesis. I'm considering of retaking it next semester even if I got a 1.0 for it. The only discount there is that what he shared over lunch could be considered as a free lecture on a course on Reality. And that's what matters most, because we are not remembered on our graves by the difficult equations we have solved, but we are remembered about the upheavals and trials we've faced... how we surpassed and sometimes how we succumbed to them. It's not the money, the brains or the looks that make up who you are, but it's the stuff in you that makes you, YOU.

I'm very discrete with my inner struggles. Only 4 people know of it, Sir, my bestfriend, me and Him (of course, omnipotent, omniscient, omni...present), but I spoke of them to this professor of mine because I believe he could understand me and perhaps provide me some insight as to how he dealt with these pressing issues when he came across them years and years ago. I've wanted to confess/share these to a priest, but they sometimes speak in jargon only Jesus Christ could understand. Hehehe... Forgive my arrogance. Dad could have been the best, but I'd have to trust his aethereal signs to get my answers for them and as I said, mothers think at a different wavelength... so where can I run to? Oh no, it's not about l-o-v-e or w-o-m-e-n. Been there done that... freeze them all for all I care and I'd still see the sun and get my daily dose of Vitamin D, I'd still get to do KKK, I'd still have a life. harharhar!

So we spoke and I decribed to him how I grew up, with whom I grew up, where I grew up and the rest of history's steps that I have traversed. We left the restaurant with Sir busog from the buffet and me feeling a bit lighter. I ate A LOT, really A LOT, but the talk over lunch removed a big cement sack over my shoulder, so I still felt lighter. My realization of the whole thing was that my problems are really very petty as compared to some who have to work so hard just to be able to get to college, with barely enough to spare for meals and shelter. The most obvious lesson I learned was that the world is just there, just like that, you can change it, but not that much really, so if approximated, whether round up or round down, you still changed NOTHING. Face life's realities the way they are. Be grateful for life, for what you have and what others have done for you. Be contented with who you are, how you look, how much you have and the kind of friends you've got. Better be alone or have just one close friend than to have so many who are just strangers and knife-wielding backstabbers in the end. With friends as rotten as that, who needs enemies?

Made this up (tee hee... I think my mind needs rehab already, but give it some thought please if you want to challenge your mind... or if you wanna join mine in rehab...hehe) here it goes:

There's something greater than one. But the power is still in one.