Just my column to fill up the dormancy of the atmosphere =$$$

The Vandals’ Legacy

In early 5th Century, a group of germanic invaders founded the notorious Empire of the Vandals in Northern Europe. They were wild, angry and ignorant to rules as they oppressed orthodox churches, destroyed walls of great cities, and spoiled anything beautiful and venerable on their enslaved lands. But in 534 AD, Emperor Justinianus of Rome defeated their army, eradicating and proclaiming them as dusts of oblivion. Despite being swiped off, a roman bishop in 1794 coined their inglorious honor into Europe’s vocabulary, as any ruthless destruction of artwork. This barbaric group’s legacy from then on became a fatal virus, inflicting its kiss of death from country to country.
Fast forward to the 21st Century.
The infamous “Vandalism” now a household name became a pandemic, smashing window panes, slashing tires, ransacking properties, defacing signs, etc. Whether it is an art or a crime, vandalism sabotages not just private and public properties but also a naïve soul’s dignity, living entities and epitomes of art and of history. Years pass by and it continues to crawl until it penetrated to the walls of pedestal of knowledge—the academe. In schools, the culprits pronounced into the limelight are not car smashers, window shatters or sculpture breakers but unsung frustrated artists and writers of a politically expressive generation. From the coasts of Europe, the Vandals’ legacy reached its paramount multiplying through fissions worldwide. The fissions were so fast that it landed drastically to our own turf too—to our dearest school, CSA-B.
From linguistic wraths on CRs, sweet nothings on armchairs, naughty cheats on classroom walls, phone number brigades on laboratory tables, to library books turned personalized textbooks; vandalism has been part of the CSA-B culture for years. On girls CRs, cubicle doors had become chat rooms of love notes, racy hate notes, narcissistic declarations, nasty gossips, and sarcastic comments. Boys CRs have curses and disturbing statements as well. Armchairs and walls had become venues of different contest genre from “emo” poem writing contests to song writing contests, from armchair design contests to longest cheats contests, and from i-hate-this-subject/this-subject-is-boring contests to hi-hello-I’m contests.
Laboratory and canteen tables and school benches also had become directories for mobile phone numbers, hate mails, and open letters. Library books were also victims as students tend to scribble down side-notes and some unrelated stuffs on book pages. Some students were even stubborn enough to photocopy that they would just tear book pieces. No matter how you see this known pandemic as a tiny bit or an alarming one, vandalism indeed has been lurking on our school grounds since whoever knows.
Why is “such” a hit? Well, committing something bad and illegal feels actually good right? Students often could not put their pen-loving hands away from shiny, shimmering and newly painted armchairs, doors and walls simply because their impulses seek to be acknowledged. But if freedom of expression is the only cause, why not join school organizations or be involved in school activities that would surely exercise one’s potentials and would serve as an ear for student views and voices? Or is it just plain boredom on a typical boring day on a boring subject of a boring teacher? Instead of scrabbling down nonsense on your armchair, why not make your untouched notebook of use by jotting down notes? Just curious on how it feels like doing it? Well honey, your curiosity is up to no good. Are your hands itching to respond on a pretty darn interesting statement made by nobody? How about responding on that pretty darn interesting statement made by nobody, a no-show by rubbing it off?
Our school handbook says vandalism is a serious offense. But why is it that no one gets punished? It’s simple. Thieves at night don’t get caught unless someone’s on guard. The problem is teachers are pre-occupied with their discussions during class hours that it’s easy for students to do it unnoticed. Yes. Been there. Done that. We admire teachers who are focused on teaching. But we will admire teachers more if they know how to multi-task by having both eyes on teaching and on disciplining students during class hours. How about the school’s action? One word. Repaint. But it would be much better if instead of repainting school properties to mask a layer of vandalism for the nth time, the school would post warning signs on CR doors, walls and designated places where students could at least read and realize that vandalism is actually no joke. You see, wild grasses won’t come off big time unless you pull their roots off.
This year, we are launching the school’s Golden Jubilee Celebration. It’s so good to hear that for fifty years, CSA-B has been an emblem of promoting quality Augustinian education to students and of instilling values of unity, love and virtue to every Augustinian heart. If our school holds such promise, we too should start the spark of change for our community and for ourselves. By starting from simple step of fighting vandalism and taking care of school properties we are moving forward for a big change, a big promise and a big step towards progress.

I hate number two’s

When I was in high school I joined in our school paper not only because I could get to be with competitive student achievers but also because I could get to have fun while participating in campus journalism contests off campus. During inter-school contests, you only don’t get to know other students from other schools but you as well get to share your skills and talents with them. To sum it up, I love the glitz and glamour of being in the life of a campus journalist. So, my story starts in one of the campus journalism contests I have joined. I was in my junior years then and during that particular contest we had a chance to participate as many fields in journalism writing as we can. There I decided to go outside of the box and take a shot in joining other fields like in editorial, sports, and even in editorial cartooning! Haha… I am a news writer ever since I figured out what journalism means so I guess it was time for me to take a spin. And guess what? I won runner-up in editorial and champion (woot! woot!) in sportswriting! Though I love winning over new things, I sort of regret winning the top in sportwriting. You see, a dear co-club member of mine was very good in sports writing. In fact, he was our sports editor and he has won a dozen of awards in such since his elementary years. So, he was the one (and he really thought he was) favored to be the champion. But it turned out that he only placed second because I beat him as the champion.

So that really starts my story. After the contest, I got the chance to talk with him together with my other co-club members. We were rejoicing then because our school was the over-all champs in the secondary division (we really were that good hehe). While we were talking, he mentioned something that really bothered me. He said that it is better to not have a place or won 3rd and 4th or so on. What’s bad he said is to be placed on the second spot when you know that you are THAT CLOSE to winning. Yep, he really emphasized the THAT CLOSE. I knew that he was really upset that made him spill that comment. But I was caught off guard because I knew that he really wanted to let me know how bad he felt of me taking his crown. From then on, he influenced me to believe in the idea that being second place is worse than being third, fourth, or no place at all. It is not about what you would expect really. It is more on what would you feel after knowing that you had THAT CLOSE.

Now, in every aspect of my life as a student, whether if I joined something or simply in my academic life, I always make sure that I go for the gold—and never the silver nor the bronze. That is why I always feel some regrets if I ever placed second (in exams, in rankings, or in awards) when I know if I could have done a tiny bit better I could have made it to the top. Yes, I am that competitive. But sometimes, and actually most of the time, I would normally accept the fact that I am that close only. Take for example my situation of being top 2 of our batch for two consecutive academic standings already. For me, well it is a great honor to even reach that far but I must admit that I never liked the idea at first that I cannot make it as top 1 for two rounds now. Another great example is what I just had recently. I joined in an on-the-spot essay writing contest and being the associate-editor of the college paper, I was expected to take this contest as a piece of cake and eyes closed. But shoot I only placed second. Honestly, I at first really questioned myself if my skills are really enough to knock down those who don’t even give a damn in being in the college paper. I don’t hold grudges to those top 1’s because first it’s my fault not theirs and second, they are in fact truly awesome! It‘s just that being number two sucks! I never had that kind of mentality that oh well, shit happens so deal with it. Yes I deal with it, but I deal with it by conditioning myself that I won’t make the same mistake again and that I would reach for the best next time.

This idea for me is indeed very pessimistic but it taught me three things. First, mediocrity is not an option. You don’t do something for the sake of just doing it. It is human nature that no matter how much we questioned ourselves on something we always want to only receive the grand prize and not the consolation prizes. Second is in everything that you do, always do your best. I remember our school president in high school taught this to us. He said that yes we win, yes we fail, but it’s not winning or losing that matters because what matters most is that you did such in the maximum level of your potential and not just in your second spare. And third, it taught me that there will always be greater and lesser persons than you are. So, even though being number two is crap I guess that’s life. You are not always the winner. And you are not always the loser too. Sometimes, you also settle at the middle—whether too far or TOO CLOSE.

Now, you know why I am not a fan of number two’s…