Archive for November, 2006

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Thursday, November 16th, 2006

All men are created equal, but some are created more equal than others…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g7zlJx9u2E

An Iranian-American student got tasered (meaning, harassed and bullied stunned by a stun gun) by police officers at the UCLA. Then, to add insult to injury, the police officers were commanding him to stand up. Note that studies have shown that tasers can paralyze the human body for 10 minutes. The student was tasered four times.

I dread the day that this would happen in UP. Well, come to think of it, with the forced disappearances of those two UP girls…

Stressed out and helpless

Monday, November 6th, 2006

Let’s make this short, sweet and quick. I’m stressed out to the max and I feel so helpless these days because…

  1. My computer is broken… for the fifth time!!! I really am pissed now because I had it fixed for various problems and have paid around 160 euros already for all the repairs. I have spent enough time agonizing over the dough (RE: precious vacation money) so I decided to put an end to my misery. I applied for a new program for university students in Spain wherein a third of the price of the computer will be shouldered by the Provincial Government of Castilla y León and the University of Valladolid. In short, I have 450 euros payable in one year, or 37.50 euros per month.
  2. Corollarily, I can’t continue writing my thesis because of technical difficulties. I have a meeting with my adviser within 10 days. I have everything swirling in my head, but — alas! — ours is a world that places more weight on what’s written rather on what’s learned.   
  3. I am supposed to present my paper on historical morphology and language pedagogy in an international conference in Barcelona but after all the hooplah, I am more inclined now to just submit my study and forget about attending the meet-and-greet part. Why?, you asked. Let’s just say that of all the things I hate, it is the lack of organization that really bugs me.    

So there. I wanted to write something about the UP tuition increase (as did Florian), but I have to get my wares fixed first before I bitch big time.