After 1.5 years of trying to make this doctoral studies work, I finally was able to let it go. Letting go can be likened to throwing your cares to the wind and simply saying to one's self that ALL is still well.
I realized this after meeting with my co-founders of The Builders' School. We were talking about teacher loads, and future classes. The school can afford to no longer accommodate me. This only means that I can step back and see that a major dream has been fulfilled--and that is to become useless, and carry on other tasks to do. I have a bit of space to create something, even if it means not doing this as a doctoral student or in the academe.
Then comes the fact that my daughter, now at 7th grade will be moving on to HS. My Miranda, my loving child who has so much to offer, and who has been one of the reasons why the Builders' School was set up, will now have a first crack at life. Yesterday, we had an early drive to visit The Beacon Academy to submit an application for scholarship.
Looking now at this spacious school, and looking back at the early years I set up my small school, I have come to appreciate ALL other schools I have been involved with. If I can draw an image of a full rainbow, but on the ground I am stepping on, then that's how I see all of it. These schools were products of hard work, commitment, and most of all, love... and it's all alive and working, in the Philippines where everything seems doubly difficult to effect change.
The school is such a lovely place to be and I felt proud to be a Filipino....sans my UP inspired shitty class consciousness. Though I know very well that The Beacon Academy comes across as the school for the rich, seeing familiar faces in their work spaces only tells me...that WE ARE ALL in this together. The middle class staff only deserve the best pay so they can send their children to other good schools of their choice. Because even upper class Filipinos and foreign students deserve the love of teachers and school leaders who have equally sacrificed their time and effort to just make quality education available. It has a school office system which insists on paying the right taxes so it can support services for the lower class. And true enough, this education must come at a price. Truer, that I cannot, for the life of me, afford that price. But even that reality, I have managed to let go....for there is no harm in trying and achieving a noble goal. The dream seems to be quite lofty my daughter and I, and there is this risk that I may take it hard in case my daughter does not get in, but so what. Everyone deserves a chance to try.
I am very nervous since this is my daughter's first attempt at going for her dreams, and so I hold her hand, and cross my fingers just the same. I almost cried after reading her essay. There is so much purity in her thoughts...how can I have such a daughter!
In the same breath, I release all cares for myself. I have held my breath far too long waiting for a response from QUT. It did come, and still at a price I cannot afford. Only a doctoral scholarship from UP will pull me through.
With all these, I choose not to hate the world, blame poverty, nor curse the imperialists...or perhaps not yet, HAH! I will do what it takes, keep calm, and carry on. Such is life...and when you're getting older, why waste time on negativity. There is still something out there to live for.
So this is me, falling in line, up there and saying, thanks for all these opportunities, and sorry for the times when I chose to drown in the pleasures of the world and not look your way, pretending that you do not care nor have the eye to do so in the first place.
I realized this after meeting with my co-founders of The Builders' School. We were talking about teacher loads, and future classes. The school can afford to no longer accommodate me. This only means that I can step back and see that a major dream has been fulfilled--and that is to become useless, and carry on other tasks to do. I have a bit of space to create something, even if it means not doing this as a doctoral student or in the academe.
Then comes the fact that my daughter, now at 7th grade will be moving on to HS. My Miranda, my loving child who has so much to offer, and who has been one of the reasons why the Builders' School was set up, will now have a first crack at life. Yesterday, we had an early drive to visit The Beacon Academy to submit an application for scholarship.
Looking now at this spacious school, and looking back at the early years I set up my small school, I have come to appreciate ALL other schools I have been involved with. If I can draw an image of a full rainbow, but on the ground I am stepping on, then that's how I see all of it. These schools were products of hard work, commitment, and most of all, love... and it's all alive and working, in the Philippines where everything seems doubly difficult to effect change.
The school is such a lovely place to be and I felt proud to be a Filipino....sans my UP inspired shitty class consciousness. Though I know very well that The Beacon Academy comes across as the school for the rich, seeing familiar faces in their work spaces only tells me...that WE ARE ALL in this together. The middle class staff only deserve the best pay so they can send their children to other good schools of their choice. Because even upper class Filipinos and foreign students deserve the love of teachers and school leaders who have equally sacrificed their time and effort to just make quality education available. It has a school office system which insists on paying the right taxes so it can support services for the lower class. And true enough, this education must come at a price. Truer, that I cannot, for the life of me, afford that price. But even that reality, I have managed to let go....for there is no harm in trying and achieving a noble goal. The dream seems to be quite lofty my daughter and I, and there is this risk that I may take it hard in case my daughter does not get in, but so what. Everyone deserves a chance to try.
I am very nervous since this is my daughter's first attempt at going for her dreams, and so I hold her hand, and cross my fingers just the same. I almost cried after reading her essay. There is so much purity in her thoughts...how can I have such a daughter!
In the same breath, I release all cares for myself. I have held my breath far too long waiting for a response from QUT. It did come, and still at a price I cannot afford. Only a doctoral scholarship from UP will pull me through.
With all these, I choose not to hate the world, blame poverty, nor curse the imperialists...or perhaps not yet, HAH! I will do what it takes, keep calm, and carry on. Such is life...and when you're getting older, why waste time on negativity. There is still something out there to live for.
So this is me, falling in line, up there and saying, thanks for all these opportunities, and sorry for the times when I chose to drown in the pleasures of the world and not look your way, pretending that you do not care nor have the eye to do so in the first place.
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