Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Had my second lecture in Trigonometry last Tuesday, in which we finished the discussion on angle conventions that will be used for the rest of the term.

I also told the freshmen about the requirement (not for the course though) that they had to sign up for AND show up for an interview with the guidance counselor. It’s not limited to the freshmen though, because the guidance counselor is new and could stand to become more familiar with the upperclassmen, so they are encouraged to schedule an interview also.

Before that, for most of the morning I attended the Institutional Assembly for all the faculty members and staff.

It started with a mass, from which I found out the feast of the saint/martyr whose existence I decided to elaborate on yesterday.

For the second time I saw the video for the start of the system of schools in the Philippines from Europe, which I last saw during the Freshmen Orientation.

After that there was a second video I haven’t seen before, on the history of the campus and what it looked like while it was being built. It felt a little weird to be on the top floor of a building looking at pictures of that same building even before the auditorium we were in was constructed.

Next the Executive Vice President delivered his address, which was inspiring. It reiterated (at least for me) most of the reasons why I decided to accept their offer to work here, and now I know I’m not the only one. From the needs of the past and the rationale of the present he went on to the dreams of the future, and he talked about our students the Future Board Top Notchers.

Later I told the upperclass Engineering students, who for some reason showed up to hear that part of the speech, that that was how I was going to greet them from now on. One of them resisted, and said he preferred to be called Nobel Laureate instead, which Doc Arnie also mentioned in his speech as an aspiration he had to be associated with one of our graduates or faculty members.

Lastly it was the System President who made a speech, talking about the role of our school in a society where the new leader of the country hadn’t been announced yet.

Just like the reference he made last year to the words from the trailer of the movie “Matrix Reloaded” he made another pop culture analogy this time, except that he didn’t quote them in his opening statement like last time (“This day holds for us the very meaning of our existence…”).

It was towards the end of his discourse, after he had talked about some Filipinos abandoning ship as their negative view of the present situation grew steadily worse, that he compared it to some of the Greek soldiers wanting to go home during their siege of Troy, and Agamemnon said that those who chose to do so should go gentle into the night, so as not to affect those remaining with their pessimism.

Even though I use recent media in my lectures to keep it current, I don’t know if I could do the same for such an important delivery. I guess I’d shy away from some of the listeners saying that I didn’t take the honor seriously enough to give the occasion the solemnity it deserves.