Brutality of the Goddess

the most incredibly unbelievable thing has happened.  no, it’s not armageddon and no, pigs still haven’t defied the law of gravity.  bob and i, certified math lizards (not wizards) in high school have been chosen to represent our section in college algebra for the annual math week quiz bowl.  and guess what?  i’m not joking.

stifle your laughter for a few more minutes.  i know, it does sound like something completely out of the ordinary.  after all, personally speaking, math and i are like oil and water–we don’t necessarily mix.  i’m better known as someone who plays with words–not numbers.  and i write essays in literal sentences not mathematical sentences.

how this happened is completely beyond me and no amount of pleading or begging will be good enough to coax my anciano math teacher into withdrawing our participation.  never in my life did i dream of joining some math quiz bowl and i thought i never would given that my inclination does not point towards doodling with radicals, special factors, and a host of algebraic expressions.

in masscom speak, it gives one nosebleed.  we masscom students are known to have the same mathematical skills as an ant.  it takes some of us a jillion years to come up with a simplified version of a horizontal equation that goes beyong three terms.  simply put, math and masscom students are two parallel lines that simply cannot meet at a common plane.

at the very least, this will be a new experience and it’s a thrillingly new way of spending valentine’s, for the love of math.  if we win, it’ll be as if aristotle became best performer in a ballet concert.  if we don’t, no one would notice after all, it would simply be within the norms for us to floop.

will this finally commence a love affair with mathematics?  i doubt.  i still say math and i are like two unlike terms.  we cannot be put together…however, we can still hang out in the same expression.

i will forever remember february 8, 2007.  it’s the day when i felt extra competitive in all aspects of my life.  it’s just one of those days when i have that stubborn belief that good enough is simply not good enough.  it’s when my inner perfectionist rears up its head and gets my fighting spirit at an all time high.  it’s the day that i felt like kicking butts and beating people at their own games.

february 8, 2007 was the day that i felt like keeping abreast with local and national affairs because i wanted to analyze each and every even.  it’s the day that i studied my lessons twice over and did an advanced study on the lessons that were to come.  it’s the day that i felt like out-eating everyone else during lunch and dinner.  it’s the day that i couldn’t help but feel that being ditched in second place would be no less than a death sentence.

february 8, 2007 is a day like no other.  and even until now, i doubt my competitive air has abated. 

i thank a certain fathead who made me feel like being buried in ten jillion pounds of crap for triggering this feeling.  it’s been a long time since i actually felt like Bonifacio who despite being only armed with bolos was nonetheless the unceasing, unflailing idealist and revolutionary.  no, i do not seek to bring down the government or anything  my reasons are more selfish that you think. besides, i have my self to worry about first.

let’s just say that there are certain situations in your life that bring you into that fork in the road.  it makes you choose whether to wallow in eternal misery and cast yourself into oblivion or to rise from the crummy ashes, head high, chin up, with your fist in the air in a swift declaration that you are ready to fight (or redeem yourself).

today i realized that i am not the wallower and that i chose the second path because i know that we all have the capability to use any depressing situation in our lives as challenges to overcome not stumbling blocks to be overcome upon.

i can feel the power seething beneath my skin and coursing through my veins.  i’ll meet you no where else but at the top, mis amigos.

the major subject in the course that i’m taking up right now isn’t exactly something that gives me hourly doses of eureka moments.  don’t get me wrong.  the teacher is brilliant and i love her with all me heart but hey, the subject never fails to give me a free ticket to dreamland whenever it rears its ugly head every wednesday and friday.

to be frank, i’m not exactly interested in developmental communication and it’s not something that i would relish pursuing all the days of my life.  hey, i’d rather be out in the world churning out children’s stories than interviewing sleazy government employees and getting passed around in their equally sleazy government offices trying to decipher the meaning of hunger and poverty.

my head droops and my eyelids suddenly weigh a thousand tons everytime filipino class ends and the bells rings prodding us to make our way to guy hall for our beloved major.  it feels as if the sandman had this habit of sprinkling grains of sand all over us as we make our way to the confines of our little nook in the dormitory-turned-class building.

i have to hand it to that class however for allowing us to hone our artistic skills over the drone of reporters.  in fact at some point, it has even transformed me into a linguist of sorts as every session encourages me to come up with an imaginary language scribbled on the upper margins of my fillers.

i have to hand it to our class.  we never seem to tire of talking about how extremely poor and pathetic the third world countries are.  we never seem to tire of talking about how hungry the kids in kenya have become.  we never seem to tire of talking about agriculture, development (or the lack of it), and industry and how communication simply ties everything together.

the hell with it.

all that talk about hunger, poverty, and illiteracy is making me hungry, poor, and illiterate.

now if only we could bring a little coffee maker in class…scratch that.