The Extracurricular Being

There has been a great amount of encouragement from my friends, relatives and even critics to start a sub-blog about music.  Perhaps it's because they have always known music as my primary interest, having performed and researched it for most of my life.

But what really kept me from starting a music blog was the question of specialization.  

Okay, I will be writing about music, but what particular topic in the field music will I discuss?  

Obviously, music is such a very wide subject, and narrowing down my blog into a more specialized topic is indeed a challenge, not only because it is already as challenging as it could get but also because I am such a man with a rather very wide range of interests as far as the discipline of music is concerned.

Another challenge is how will I connect my interest in music to my advocacy in promoting the welfare of the differently educated people?  That sounded like a one-million-dollar question to me.

As far as music is concerned, I am only sure of three things: (1) music is one of the beautiful disciplines where people do not really care if you got a college degree; (2) I am not a big fan of "pop music" for I find it more "musical" to listen to other excellent yet underrecognized musicians out there; and (3) beyond melody and rhythm, I learned a lot of life's lessons through music.

Wait.  Looks like I just hit the jackpot!

Well, the local music community enjoys the relative educational equality that has always been evasive in the Philippine corporate world.  But that does not mean the local music community does not have problems.  A lot of dignified yet underrated musicians are struggling to break free from the cultural tyranny of overexposed ultra-mainstream entertainers.  And amid these apparently eternal love-hate relationship between the musical yin's and the yang's, an open listener will never fail to capture the priceless lessons music has to offer.

And as inspired by all the lessons music bestows to all open listeners, I am now creating my new sub-blog which I called "Music Lessons".

So there you go.  Hope you'd like my posts in my new sub-blog about music.

About a decade ago, I came up with a principle I coined as educational excellence.  I opined that we must promote educational excellence instead of academic excellence, for the former outshines the amorality of the latter.

Let us compare and contrast the two principles according to their dictum:

Academic Excellence:
For the dictum of academic excellence is to attain academic merits through scholastic pursuits.

Educational Excellence:
To pursue knowledge in all available avenues and put knowledge into practice for the purpose of self and social welfare.

That means educational excellence tells us the following:

- If you do not have the means to pursue formal education, you do not need to resort to illegal and immoral activities to join the academic world, because there are other learning avenues available out there.

- People must put emphasis on practical knowledge.  Memorizing the scientific names of vegetables is a good thing, but isn't it better if you know how to cook them?

- True education must contribute to the empowerment of the individual, and the individual must contribute to the empowerment of the community.

As you can see, educational excellence has nothing to do with having a college degree, graduating with honors, or being from a "reputable" university.  The goals of educational excellence can simply be summed up to three values: lifelong learning, practicality, and social responsibility.

Also, educational excellence strongly opposes various forms of cheating in the academic world, because cheating only gives a student good grades but not good grasp of the subject, and thus it is incompatible with the virtue of true learning.

Educational excellence, NOT academic excellence, is the mindset that we need to adopt as far as education is concerned.

There have been several attempts to define, redefine and refine academic excellence.  It may be because of either the increasing cultural pressure from the society to further impose the scholarly manners to everyone and everything, or the various small yet audible counter-academic sentiments that have sprouted inside and outside the academic world.

But at the end of the day, academic excellence never really abandoned (and it never will) its narrow essential traits: quantity over quality, grades over grasp, and merits over morals.

Let's face it.  Who is the better performer in terms of academic excellence, the student who got a high grade by submitting a plagiarized research paper, or the student who has a very sound understanding of the Philippine Revolution but got a failing mark from his/her pro-Magdalo professor for submitting a position paper stating that Andres Bonifacio is the first Philippine president?  No matter how we put it, it's the former who can be "labelled" as the academically excellent student, not the latter.  The proof?  The grade.  Simple.

Similarly, who is the "better writer" in terms terms of academic excellence, a graduate of AB English who does not even know basic verb tenses (yes, they exist here in the Philippines), or a prolific essayist who does not have a college diploma?  You got it right!  It's still the former.  The proof?  The diploma.

I know a lot of people would disagree with me, arguing that they did not finish college education just for the piece of paper that goes with it after four years.  Some people may cite other more sensible, honest, practical and even noble reasons behind their studies, like skills, interest, need and helping the poor.  True.  No doubt about it.  But these reasons are way beyond the concern of academic excellence.

For the dictum of academic excellence is to attain academic merits through scholastic pursuits.  No more, no less.  So that means if somebody resorts to prostitution to raise enough funds for tuition fee and ends up graduating as suma cum laude, that person is still academically excellent.  It's as plain as that.

Come on, if a licensed chemist who graduated summa cum laude in UP poisons the water supply, do you think he will lose those high grades he got in college?  Hell no!  Yup, he may be imprisoned or even put in the death row, but his academic excellence will stay as if nothing really happened.  In the eyes of the public, he is still "matalino".  Gago nga lang.

But as far as academic excellence is concerned, hindi bale nang wasak, huwag lang bagsak.

Academic excellence ALWAYS cares about merits but NEVER cares about morals.  Thus, academic excellence is not just immoral.  Academic excelence is amoral.

Academic excellence comdemns Erap not because of his crime of plunder but because he does not have a college diploma.  Academic excellence sings praises to Ferdinand Marcos due to the fact that he got a degree in law (end even topped the bar exams) despite the human rights violations allegedly committed during Martial Law.  And I can even go as far as saying that it's academic excellence that insulted and betrayed Andres Bonifacio.  During the Tejeros Convention, isn't it in academic grounds that Daniel Tirona objected Bonifacio's election to the post of Director of the Interior?

Much to our ignorance, academic excellence and the overall culture of academic elitism has greatly affected our history as a nation, and will continue to do so.  It creates a long and continuing history of corruption, marginalization, and moral decline.

Our children continue to cheat in exams.  Parents continue to do their children's assignments.  Students continue to plagiarize their research papers.  College prostitutes continue their business every registration period.  And towards the end of the semester, the "kuwatro o kantot" tales continue to be told as campus legends.

All these in the name of academic excellence.

And the sad thing is academic excellence simply doesn't give a damn on how you do things.

So what do we replace academic excellence with?  I will discuss that in my next post.

It is such a very rewarding experience to be able to raise two cute Labrador Retrievers, both emotionally and educationally.

I admit that at first we decided to take them as new members of our family because we found them cute.  We were very unaware of the huge challenges raising dogs can present, particularly high energy dogs like Labrador Retrievers or Labs for short. 

And when I talk about challenges, I am not only talking about the financial burden having dogs can offer (e.g. dog food, veterinary visits, dog toys and accessories, etc.).  But more importantly, I would like to emphasize the emotional readiness needed in raising dogs.

A dog is not a furniture that you can just leave in your yard to kill lots of time all day long.  A sleep-and-eat lifestyle is the last thing on earth a dog would like.  Mind you, a dog would find more joy in dying in a war while helping his/her human companion in the battlefields than to live a day in his/her life doing nothing but watch the clouds pass by.

A dog therefore needs more than just food and water.  More importantly, it needs quality time from his/her human companion.

And for yours truly who is working in Makati in a pretty unholy shift (3:30 am-12:30pm) and resides outside the National Capital Region, it is indeed a huge challenge to give my dogs the quality time they need.

Yet thank Heaven and Earth, I was able to provide my furkids with the time and love that they need.  As I have implied in my previous post, it is just all pure will power and old-fashioned hard work.

But let me stress that it's not just all work as far as raising my dogs are concerned.  Of course, they give us a lot of priceless things in return.  I feel like they rewarding us for all the care that we gave to them.  And in my case, what I treasure most is I learned a lot of precious things from them, things that I only used to brush off when I was a lot younger.

Ask any seasoned dog owner out there, and they will all tell you that one of the greatest things a dog can teach you is patience.  Yes, PATIENCE.  Oh dear, my very good mom knows how many seconds it would take for me to lose my temper.  Same goes to my wife.  I admire these two women for the patience they showed on me for my very lack of that virtue.  Aheheheh!  But let me tell you, my dogs taught me to just laugh things off.  So what if they chewed my socks again!?  =D

But the most important thing my dogs taught me is that every great blessing comes with great obligation.  The academic world has made us believe countless times that we must work hard to receive blessings.  Yeah, that's true... but that's not just it.  My dogs taught me a lot more than that.  They taught me that when we receive blessings, we must work harder!  Why!?  Because blessings may be happy outcomes but they aren't happy endings.  Whether it is a very good job offer, a beautiful girl who finally gave you her sweet "yes", or an angelic newborn baby, we must work harder to nurture these blessings so they can blossom into something bigger, something more beautiful, and something more meaningful.  Blessings should never be treated as graduation day.  Rather, they must be treated as the first day in class, or should I say "first day high"... wow pare... nyahahahah!

It touches my heart everytime people tell me that our furkids are such beautiful dogs because I and my wife know the fact that these kids didn't grow overnight.  Their current cuteness is a product of a long history of hard work and dedication.  What's more amusing to realize is the fact that we are just getting started, and these furkids still have a very long way to go as far as cuteness is concerned!

I really, really feel like writing about this one.

I, for the nth time, have become guilty of abusing my earthen body again.  I worked way beyond my physical limits.

My tummy went berserk yesterday, and it was really violent.  The tiles, the faucet, and that throne suddenly became my frequent friends.

I lost a lot of body fluid in the process.  It made me very weak.  Yet still, I decided to go to work, much to my wife's protest.

This morning, upon arriving at our office, I knew my body could not handle eight hours of office drama.  It was downright impossible.

For the body, that is.

All that propelled me is my stubborn refusal to let the workload take one golden opportunity to crazily pile up and multiply like gremlins on the loose.  No way!  Over my dead gorgeous body!

And before I knew it, my spirit, armed with that unyielding will power, has taken over my dehydrated earthen body.

Eight hours is now over.  What a daredevil stunt for this differently educated soul!

Finally, I can now go home.

It is such a good thing that some of us are now calling other people in a more respectful way.  The senior members of our society are now being called “wise” or “experienced” instead of the apparently harmless term “old”.  I heard someone call our Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as “vertically challenged” instead of “pandak”.  We now call our handicapped brethrens as “differently abled”.

Too bad, as a writer and advocate of counter-academic beliefs, I am ashamed to admit that I myself failed to observe political correctness in addressing my fellow “undergrads”.

Some Pinoys nowadays shun the label “college dropout” for it is a pejorative word that segregates the undergrads from the “college graduates”, with the former as those who failed and dropped out of the academic arena and the latter as those who won and earned the recognition is being among the educated. 

In order to soften things, some people (yours truly included) use the term “undergraduate” instead.  But the term “undergraduate” is an equally contemptuous one, for it implies that the intelligence level of the “undergrads” is UNDER the competence bar of the college graduates.  We all know that’s not true.

So from now on, we college undergraduates will address ourselves in a totally different way.  We will now call ourselves as differently educated.

And as a mark of respect to our new name, I will be renaming this sub-blog from "Learning Beyond Schooling, Education Over Academics" to "Differently Educated".

Cheers to the differently educated talents of the Philippine corporate world!

I recognize the fact that both college graduates and undergraduates nowadays face the same harsh reality: the difficulty of landing a job here in the Philippines.

To tackle the said issue, I created another sub-blog of The Extracurricular Being entitled "Requirement: Pleasing Personality".  There I will write about equal employment opportunity, disagreeable job ads, life-work balance issues, and other concerns faced by both the jobless and the overworked Pinoy.

Enjoy reading!

Greetings my friends.

I started this day pretty well.  Just this morning, a very good friend commented on my post.  Unfortunately, that friend of mine posted his comment not on this blog website but on my Facebook account.

My friend commented candidly:

"punyeta ang dami mong angas sa mundo pag sole owner ka na ng SM cguro ayan mag angas ka"

I took some time savoring whatever candy the words from my friend has to offer.  And eventually, the words "angas", "punyeta" and "SM" turned out to be really sweet ones.

"Angas"?  Maybe.  I think it has something to do with the way I write, I may need to polish it more.  More incision, less angst.  I will work on that.

"Punyeta"?  Definitely!  Well, the tone of my writing style may sound too proud, but it ends there.  You see, my style may be cocky, but my purpose is definitely not.  My purpose for starting this blog, in the first place, is to combat the "angas" of the academic elitists.  Persecute Peter for the crowing of the cock, not for the thirty silver coins.  If there's a crime that most of us undergraduates are guilty of, it is the crime of having low self-esteem, because sad to say most of us believed the society's sick standards stating that wise are those who got the college diploma, and dumb are those who do not.  When it comes to "angas", it is not us undergraduates but the brats of the academic world who have shamelessly displayed the attitude of arrogance.  Punyeta sila.

On this page, who is being "maangas"?  Is it the college graduate as per post # 1226 and 1228, or the undergrad as per post # 1229?

On this page, is the member who replied as per post # 1252 being "maangas" by defending herself/himself?  I do not think so.

Let me emphasize some important points in post # 1252:

"...You have to realize that learning is a continuous process..."

"...in today's age of information, ang isang masipag na undergraduate ay kayang kayang ilampaso ang isang graduate na hanggang angas lang, you know... those who believe that an undergraduate cannot manage college graduates. Nauuna kasi ang yabang..."

"...Nasa attitude yan, wala sa diploma..."

"...I just need money to get a college diploma... But for those who deify the college diploma above other more important things like honesty, integrity, and respect for people, I do not know if there's an amount of money big enough to purchase the open mind that they badly need..."

"... If college teaches nothing but conceit, if it only makes someone feel superior over undergraduates who are just mere victims of their own financial limitations, tama ka, better not finish college."

So there.  Rest assured I will continue to educate myself further to be as humble as I should be.

And oh, I almost forgot...

Sole owner of SM?  I don't know about that.  But sounds good isn't it?  Aheheheh, wishful thinking!  But even if that happens, I don't think that gives me the license to be arrogant.  Baka ma-kidnap for ransom pa ako, mahirap na.  =D

Marunong ka ba magluto ng pinakbet?  Gutom na ako eh!

Ratatat kasi nang ratatat ang bunganga hindi naman pala kayang palamunin!

Galing dito ang larawan.

We have read, heard and watched it countless times in mainstream media.

Take Wowowee for example, wherein a contestant will be asked by Willie who he/she is with.  The contestant's companion would usually be a parent.  And whenever Willie would ask what the parent wanted to tell his/her child, it's time for cheap impromptu noontime melodrama.  The parent, teary-eyed, would say, "Anak, kahit mahirap ang buhay, gagawin natin ang lahat para makapagtapos ka ng pag-aaral."

Very predictable.  Very typical.  Very Filipino.  And most of all, very sad.

Indeed, for the Filipino culture, it is a must to do everything for the sake of acquiring a college diploma.

And when they say everything, they mean everything!

Cheating on exams, parents doing their children's homeworks, plagarizing research papers and theses, resorting to prostitution to raise enough money for matriculation expenses, stories of one night stands with the instructor to evade a failing mark.

We Filipinos now do EVERYTHING all for that big dream of graduating, that piece of paper called college diploma, which is the academic world's "documented affirmation" of a person's "intelligence", even if it costs us our sense of honesty, integrity, and self-respect.

We Filipinos have now reached the lowly situation that we now value the college diploma over our moral virtues.

The Filipino society has now placed an extraordinarily overwhelming emphasis on the college diploma.  The Filipino people has now deified it.  For most Filipinos, the college diploma is their God!  I don't care if a conventional grade-conscious folk would approach me and dare correct me, for as long as he/she is willing to do "everything" to get that shining college diploma, that piece of paper is his/her God!

How low have we fallen?  Sure, there's nothing wrong to pursue formal education and finish college, but if we continue pursue it in the way we do it nowadays, that's when things get horribly wrong.  In an attempt to uplift the current situation of our country by producing more professionals through college education, we actually worsen the health of our nation by instilling a culture of corruption to our youth who will grow old believing it's fine to resort to dirty things to acquire the desired wealth, power, and social status.

Now, to the students who are currently pursuing formal education in the academic world, before doing anything for the purpose of acquiring that aspired academic merit, please do think about the ethical uprightness of the act.  After all, I can say with full and uncompromising conviction that dignity is still far more important than the diploma.