Where's your Daddy?

April 16,2007

I am feeling weird this morning for some strange reasons. We had the parents’ orientation this morning for our practicum this summer and my parents weren’t there. I can’t blame them though. They have so much to do in the province. My mother is a housewife who attends to the needs of my three little siblings at the same time she manages our small business. My father, on the other hand, is a public high school teacher. He sometimes supervises our small farm located three or four kilometers away from our house which is situated in the town proper. Maybe I am just missing them, sigh.

The orientation was well-attended. I arrived on time and sat at the back. A parent sat beside me. You could just imagine what I felt that time. The parent is somewhat the same with my father. If only he was there, both of them would probably be competing in the question and answer portion of the orientation. Nonetheless, I admire the parent for being inquisitive, at least from my point of view. His attitude implies something to me; that he was super concerned about his daughter.

One week more and we’re going to our designated areas. I am assigned somewhere in Rizal. And here are some of the things I am expecting to happen after our practicum:

-we would be toasted
It is super hot in the province since it is summer time. My currently sun-kissed skin would be blacker. Anyway I don’t care. I used to be a little bit white but because I often attend mobilizations, my skin became black. Now I could conceal my bruises caused by my lack of red blood cells.

-a change in attitude
We are all part of the petty-bourgeois segment in our society using the class analysis. Hence, we still have bourgeois tendencies basically because of our (bourgeois) orientation. But after our practicum, I believe that after seeing the harsh realities happening in our society and after experiencing firsthand the dire situation of the marginalized sectors in the sub-urban, most of us would change-in our lifestyle, attitude and political outlook.

-improvement or exacerbation of my scoliosis
I may be more of a liability in the group for having many diseases. And scoliosis is one of the many physiological problems that I have. My bed is designed for people who have scoliosis and I find it difficult to sleep in other kinds of bed. Plain and flat bed is good for my back however; my back aches whenever I turn sideways. Only two things might happen to my dear back: either it will worsen or improve. Flat surface could correct my scoliosis. Moreover, my body and back could not stand heavy loads and long hours of walking. Whoa, I am such a liability.

-heightened agitation
Seeing the conditions of the marginalized sector is already agitating but experiencing them causes much more agitation. The two things differ; the first is only superficial while the latter is experiential hence it has greater impact to the person.

-a more developed self
For our one month stay in the province, I think we might change physically and psychologically. The conditions we would be in contribute to the over-all development of ourselves. For a month we will be exposed to a scenario/world which we usually do not see for we were raised in a world of comforts-a place where we could freely and easily eat our favorite burger, order our favorite mocha frappucino drink, then watch our favorite show when we get home.

-increased political consciousness/maturity
Learning is and should be a two-way process. Surely, we will learn new things that we don’t usually read in books and newspapers. And I expect that most of us if not all would have a deeper political consciousness.