The proof of the pudding

I realized my entries are a little heavy so let's have a bit of "light reading". Let me give you one reason why I love being in school again: I like it because it pushes me to be better. You know how it's so easy to want things and how it's very, very easy to dream about being this and that? It is, no? But really, how many people follow through and do the groundwork? Exactly. I also like that I can never (probably, will never) be complacent in grad school. There are always so many things I have to work on and every class is a reminder for improvement.

Truth be told, I don't think I'm at the level where I'm supposed to be but the mere fact that I enjoy being in class (despite the equivalent strain grad school brings to say, finances or work) means my learning is going somewhere (I hope to God it is). What I like best about graduate school is that I get to learn so many valuable things from such great people. My teacher, for one, gave sage advice for us who are pursuing further studies. Sure, these are related to our academic concerns (the first one for a published dissertation, the next one on a competitive master's program and the third, for presenting a paper without an outline or a thesis in an international conference) but I thought they're great stuff we could all apply in our lives.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I've always believed that anything worth doing is not worth doing badly.

It is so easy to earn a reputation for crap but it is not easy to live it down. 

Then, I have my classmates who are all awesome in their own way. It's a little disturbing how we're always together in and out of class (or is that my loner tendencies talking?) but I find it nice that we all make an effort to build a relationship with one another, no matter how different we all are. We're currently in that phase where a lot of us quit our old work and have started new jobs, so some of us (like my friend Rach!) get to buy celebratory desserts after a rigorous three (sometimes, three and a half) hour class.  (This time, we just finished a three hour and a half discussion on Quants! Quantitative methods! Homoscedasticity! The Central Limit Theorem! Hehe, I enjoyed it though.) 

We had our weekly Friday chicken dinner at Manang's.  One distinct trait of this group is that we have a propensity for eating so much chicken. I, being a big chicken fan myself, like that the structure was shaped that way (O, YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) If you're a weekend market fan, you'd know that Manang's is a famous stall in Mercato. They sell fried chicken coated with a special sauce (in original, spicy and some other thing. I usually just stick to the original, it's sweet and it tastes like soy garlic). I like Manang's better than Bon Chon but honestly, not better than Flaming Wings because the thick coating could use a little work. Anyway, eating at Manang's is cheap. A meal is only a little over 120 pesos and it makes for a satisfying dinner. Try it yourself! ;)

Then, we moved to Starbucks for even more talking over coffee and cakes. It was great. Although sometimes, I think Starbucks is the Meralco of coffee shops, in that the charges are steep but we all avail of the services anyway.  

I really hope I get to be where my teachers are right now (On an IR level, of course. My teachers are really accomplished but still super cool! Although, I can't really talk about them extensively because they have incredible Google and Twitter-fu and it would be awkward in real life.) For now, I'm trying to figure out how to balance school and work better. There must be a system I haven't worked out just yet. After all, anything worth doing is not worth doing badly. ;)

Let me leave you with a funny clip from 30 Rock about graduate students:

Honestly, I don't even know if it's a satire or not. It can bring out the worst in people, or you know, the crazy. But it works, so hey! :)

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Two straight nights of chicken with my graduate school friends. I have to say that food is a strong motivation in graduate school. That and my obvious lack of a unique, potentially lucrative skill set (like drawing or computer programming or schmoozing), more than anything else. I shouldn't even be eating because I didn't perform very well this week. I did a total 360 and played like LeBron in the fourth quarter when I got to the second part of my test. (That is a basketball reference, basically LeBron James plays like a little bitch baby in the fourth quarter of many crucial games. He's a great player but when he chokes, he chokes hard.) 

As for the food, I have to say that Flaming Wings is infinitely better than Bon Chon. I get it. I get the paper thin skin that comes from a double fried chicken but Bon Chon chicken is not flavorful enough. Good chicken, definitely, but not something I'd choose over, say, Jollibee. Flaming Wings wins it in the wings department (I had a standard 3-pc. Chicken Wings (Soy Garlic) set in Bon Chon, 135php), it comes out cheaper (their Buffalo wings are sold for 147php, six pieces) plus they have more options and they have bigger servings too. Bon Chon Taft, in particular, is a little poor in frontline service. Perhaps it was because we came in at ten and the staff was just sleepy and tired so the cashier acted like she wanted to be slapped in the face. Still, something has to be done. I never complain about service but this store needs to work on theirs. 

Bon Chon Chicken

GF, University Mall

Taft Ave., Manila

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By the way, I stole a couple of photos from my classmate, Jay. Also, I really look dopey in real life. I have a particularly pathetic look on my face and I hate it. Add it to my lack of physical aptitude and a general gift of bad luck and you have a girl whose daily life is made up of tiny disasters. It adds up, you know, and it's disturbing to be so out of it most of the time that if I were a T.V. producer and my life was a show, I'd write my character off my own show. (Looking at you, Courtney Cox) /end of self-loathing.

Things I did: White Wednesday edition

My International Law class is on a Wednesday. On that note, my Wednesdays are usually long and it does not end until a little after ten. It involves a lot of reading, writing, eating, and praying that I get called only when I have an answer. For this week, I armed myself with coffee, noodles and the color white (because a. I love a good laugh, b. I am lazy and c. I have no self-control ☹ I also have a wee bit of coffee addiction but that may also be filed in c).

I had a late lunch of gyoza and Chashu ramen (disappointing in two ways: no soft-boiled egg and it came with crunchy bits reminiscent of tempura batter. I finished it anyway so I guess I'm the real disappointment in this story.) Then, I...

The beginning of term

September is International Literacy Month so I'd like to be around here more often, writing about the thing I love doing the most: reading. I think I could do that. I can still read (sometimes, I still read books even when I really should be reading something else) in between my many readings for grad school and the papers I still have to rewrite for my theories class. If I tried hard enough.

I realized I don't really talk about grad school very much unlike my other classmates with blogs. I guess it's not my thing (?) since I never know the right things to say. Let me tell you a little something about school for tonight though, just because. It's now my third term and my favorite class, so far, was last term's Contemporary Issues and Trends class. I wish I excelled in that class but I didn't. I really liked our reading selection though, most of the articles addressed complex issues in a sensible way. One of our readings was Jonathan Franzen's op-ed on Technology and Love. It was one of our best class sessions. I think "going for what hurts" is now part of my decision-making process. Also, I have a bias so subjects taught by my favorite teachers¹ become my favorite subjects . I don't know about this term, though I doubt I'd have that "just happy to be in this class" feeling once again. It is what it is (and I'm going to get through it).

This term, we have International Law and Research Methods. I quite like the idea of studying international law. We already had that when I was an undergraduate but I don't know what it will be like on a graduate level.

Anyway, at the start of every term, I make an online copy of the syllabus because I usually lose mine after two meetings (I have also lost it on the day it was given, because I am a scatterbrain). I've been working on my IntLaw syllabus which is 25 pages long. The syllabus itself is like a reading. I have to admit that it's pretty great (in an "OMG, great white sharks are so great but they're so terrifying" kind of way). I found this part of the syllabus so boss so I spliced it for you (my imaginary friends) since I am already oversharing anyway. It's a winner:

Will I be able to read the suggestions listed under the headings? Well, no. But I like having them there, just in case. You'll never know! #charot² My French is so bad that for the longest time, I thought oeufs en cocotte³ meant eggs and cheese. X_X

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¹ Mostly made up of women professors I look up to because they kick ass in their fields and they're really very cool. Also, I really like it when professors motivate their students through objective comments, like the way my professors make me want to be better at writing (and this whole MA thing). I think my contemporary film teacher is on sabbatical but I did enjoy writing for her class when I was still in college. I think one of the reasons why I'm still in school is the small hope that one day, I will be very good too. Although at the rate I'm going, that change will probably come in another lifetime. At least I tried, no? :(

² Charot \ˈcher-ət\ - (n): a joke, may be used interchangeably with chos. Both of which are interjected between statements to connote harmless banter. (i.e. "That was just a chos!")

³ It means eggs in ramekins, unfortunately.

Get with the program

It took an entire payday (and quite possibly, my first shot at inconveniencing my boss¹) to file everything that I need so I can take my GAT but thankfully, I have generous professors who were kind enough to squeeze my forms into their very busy schedules. It's a bit affirming, knowing that I was exchanging messages with somebody I really look up to, an exchange that started out with my plea for help and then later on became an invitation to chat about novels at the department (!!!). Hey, that counts as something no? School also counts as something I can look forward to in 2011 and hopefully, as a step towards New York (which is my original plan but it sort of fell apart when the world made me realize I'm not academically qualified for a foreign university just yet) within two years. I believe in the power of positive thinking. We will do this.

In any case, I already took my GAT (I took it today! It was fairly easy but we never know) and I've begun preparing for January by revisiting old lectures through my readings and my trusty podcasts (which I used to use as a studying shortcut whenever my readings pile up) from iTunes University².

God, I can't wait to go back. I'm obviously very happy about all of this and if the graduate school motivation graph³ is used as a point of reference, one will be able to tell that I haven't gone far ahead. Which is okay because the most important point of this entry is that I'm right on schedule. And that I haven't given up on my life's Masterplan and/or my dreams.

At least, not yet. (Okay, I hope and pray that I won't ever have to but again, we never know)

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¹Well, I'm not really sure. I think my boss is a genuinely nice person so I got off work easily, but I am speaking only from impression and the premise that I like to believe the best of people. I'm just assuming I got an easy pass because I'm new but I'm very unhappy about missing days from work this early. (The weather also made it impossible for me to go to work last tuesday, jsyk)

² I kind of favor lectures from Columbia University's SIPA program because that's my dream school and program (albeit I am underfunded). Sometimes when I feel like geeking out, I get stuff from the Humanities selection. Favorite: Marianne Talbot.

³ This graph. Get with the program!