Beyond classrooms and other lessons

This photo together with my SocSci batch mates was taken right after we presented our thesis proposals.
After that, we became 'remnants', and the rest, as they say, is history.

Earlier this day, I was evacuating old college files from sets of DVDs to my laptop computer when I unearthed not-so-old photos during my SocSci years in CLSU. I do not intend to reminisce about those turbulent years (LOL) of my life, but as I click through the rest of the album, I can not help but smile, and then laugh, at how those times came in a blur yet made an indelible impact as to who I am now. As I always like to say, CLSU have been my turning point, in every major detail of my life. And my years as social science student were really defining and life changing.
But one fact remain that made me laughing throughout my brief review of personal history; one word that described my college life: REMNANTS. It was actually a sort of notorious title given to students who stay in the university beyond their expected time of graduation. Not that they want to gain more knowledge, but I hoped so, really.

An extended college career? It was never in my dreams, not a part of my plans to get extended in college. Especially when the fact that people would make a real stigma out of that misfortune had brought me no comfort. When I graduated in high school at the top of my batch, all I wanted was to NOT let myself fail the expectations of people around me. I was too terrified of being not able to fulfill those expectations of me…expectations that seemed to be burdensome for me yet I was more than willing to adopt for myself. That’s why I was really so desperate to graduate on time. I even once considered not being able to graduate on time as a curse, that’s why all I ever wanted was to finish on time and on the right track, to get out of college with a wonderful exit, and then find a decent work and be happy in life.

 Yet that was before, when I do not yet consider myself to be made for something better than just the dreams of graduating on time, or of having a wonderful and colorful exit in college, or a grand entrance to the real world of profession and career.

That was before when my world was just made of other people’s expectations for me, when my security was just built on my dependence with other people and not from within. That was before when I simply went to classes to study lessons and get good grades. That was before when all I needed to do was to bury myself with just books and lessons and assignments and projects. That was before when I simply contented myself with the dorm-classroom-library-dorm routine and satisfied myself with just the lessons the professor taught me from the whiteboard that was rarely used, or in a black board that was in the first place not even really the color of black.

Things have greatly changed when I woke up one day and feeling tired of the usual routine that honestly did not give me any sense of fulfillment, or a sense of purpose. That was when I wanted to find a way to be somewhere else, or else I stink in the same place with nothing to give when the right time comes.

It took me a hard time figuring out what I really like doing, and I realize I've been denying myself of a lot of reasons to improve by keeping to myself my passion for something I was supposed to be putting into practice. And since my course, and later the CLSU Collegian (the university publication which I joined and eventually led) changed so much in me, all I could do was to find that something, that place somewhere, where I would be able to learn things beyond the scope of the four corners of the classroom.

And these are just few of what I found out:

a. Learn from life itself. I realized that nothing beats the lessons learned from the school of hard-knocks. You have to keep your mind open to the realities--even the harsh ones--of life and muster every courage you can to be undaunted by them. Life is unpredictable, that is a fact. But life is also a series of choices we make daily, so it definitely will not hurt if we make only the good ones. If we can't avoid the bad ones though, at least we try to bounce back and be willing to change for the better. Fair enough?

b. Be with people. Being a hard-core social science nurtured individual, my greatest capital should be a heart for people and the community. Irregardless of my introversion which thankfully my course and my experiences with it have liquidated, I must show up; I must commune with the people I am taught to love and serve. Being a social science person means I must embrace the community as my laboratory and growth zone; a soil upon which the seeds of learning that I gained from my education can be sown and will someday grown and bear fruit.

c. Loyalty to country. Yeah, come on! It seems that today nobody is talking about loyalty and love for country anymore. It seems that we have become a generation of people willing to leave country in exchange for another life somewhere, in a place we call 'greener pasture', wherever that is. If there's one thing I am grateful and proud about my chosen discipline, it is the lessons of valuing national history, culture, and identity. In my personal journey with the 'science of the social', I have found out that heroism can be as real to us as they appear on books and movies. Heroism and sacrifice are real, because the people I know who made these ideals true to their meaning have existed. And they left a legacy on which I am intent to emulate, or aspire for.

They say that the greatest lessons are not so much learned from the classrooms as they can be learned outside it. And as a student, I have subscribed to that idea. When I became a teacher myself, I couldn't agree more. It was the lessons of life--an application of what I gained from the classroom--that had the greatest impact every time I land a point.

It was the lessons from beyond the classrooms that makes greatness possible.

It has always been that way.