Last posting on Duluth Days

IT'S time to retire this blog. It doesn't quite feel right anymore. These days are all about a new beginning, learning new skills, charting a new path. I am still on literal and figurative house cleaning mode. I thought this bog was one of the things I could keep, with a little cleaning, redesigning and tweaking. Alas, Duluth Days need to come to an end.

I end here with familiar words from a familiar story:

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's five -year mission. To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.

:)

Moving on

I HAVEN'T felt like writing in this blog since, well, since the new year started. In many ways, I have already left Duluth. I associate it with the EnEd program, with resting a bit after many busy years working in Manila. The last two semesters though, I have been feeling a growing restlessness. UMD pales in comparison with UP Diliman. There are no rallies. There are no Lantern Parades, no painted streets, no fiery brilliant professors (though there are some professors who are brilliant, but just not fiery). There are no exciting student events. And the campus is just too goddamn empty during summers. Lastly, I associate it with a certain sense of academic dullness that I can't quite explain right now. I'm going to go out and say it: getting good grades here was just too easy. Some of my professors had standards that were not high enough compared to the brain searing (and invigorating) classes I've attended at UP and at the Asian Institute of Management. While there are professors who appreciate students who give more or want more out of a class, there are also professors who feel intimidated by students who may actually have better comprehension and analytical skills than they might have. Such is the problem with small towns. Or maybe it's just my program. I certainly did not feel this dullness in my photography classes.

I just can't wait to get out of here and return to the world of meaningful work and getting paid a non-student salary.

hmmm

It's snowing.

Out with the old

THIS happens to me every last week of December. I clean, I throw away odd assortments of useless things I've accumulated over the year, thinking they might be useful someday. I erase files. I make copies, I make back-ups. I sweep like my life depended on it. And, I change my blog design.

There will be other changes too. I won't be in school next semester. I've graduated. Who knows what I'll do with a second masters degree. I'll be on my own the next few weeks sending off job applications, maybe holding a temporary, but interesting "pang-pocket money" kind of job. Suddenly, I will not be part of an official community. This means I'll have to creep back into the other communities I chose to ignore while I was tearing a path towards thesis completion: the church choir, maybe the larger symphony choir. The only sort of structure I see I'll be having will be the thrice of four times a week fitness class.

It's scary. I have no idea what's to become of me. I only have high hopes, darn good skills, and a thicker hide.