November 29, 2012.

Thursday; doomsday. 

I made this note to clear my head and discern a silver lining to the most hectic day of my week – Thursday. This is the day of the week where it takes me all my willpower to push myself to get up from my bed.

You are, by all means, welcome to talk about your own perspective and even raise violent reactions to this nonsensical profession.

Be my guest.

Philosophy 1. Upon stepping inside the recit room, only one thought flashed through my mind – the boredom I’d have to be in for 1 and a half hours. Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate our Philosophy class just because it deals with Philosophical ideas that do not even generate one specific and absolute truth, honestly speaking, I love pondering about why and how things came to be as it is and the many answers one concept can have. You may say that I am a lover of life complexities. (But please exclude the complexity of Mathematics in that one; that’s a different story altogether.)

      My concern is on our professor and his lack of skills to keep students engaged in a tricky subject like Philosophy.

      Before I took the course, I already laid out my expectations to Philosophy teachers and their characteristics, and the ‘ability to keep the students engaged in the lesson’ tops my list. I know it is early for me to say this about him since the second semester merely started two weeks ago, but those in those incipient weeks, I had come to discover his uneasiness in dealing with the students. The repetitive sentences, incoherent words, and the way he stutter in the midst of discussing concepts somehow bothered me, but more than that, I felt something more.

—Sympathy.

      He was trying his best, the beads of sweat on his temple proved my point. The first two academic weeks ware the most crucial to both the students and their teachers. Students were able to discern the abilities of their instructors as the latter do to students in those first weeks, and the prevailing thought one has on a professor may or may not change even as time progresses. It is simply saying that ‘first impressions’ last.

      Now going back to my professor, he is a great guy but as initially stated, we often caught him stumbling on his words and miscalculating how his sentences should end hence, the jumbled thoughts.

      You may think that I am being overly dramatic about this certain subject, but let me just clear this; I will not make a big fuss about this if this is not philosophy, but it just so happens that it is indeed, in my most honest opinion, one of the hardest and complicated subject there is.

      By the end of last Thursday’s meeting I was already resigned to the fact that I may extract little knowledge from him, and it really disappointed me since I anticipated this subject. (I didn’t put BA Philosophy as my first course choice for nothing.)

      …but then came today.

      I was, how should I put it? Ah, impressed and grateful at the same time. For a person with such insatiable taste, I found myself deeply engaged in his topic today and what surprised me more was our professor himself. He seemed more comfortable and relaxed, and was really good at his craft.

      I gave him about 15 minutes of pure inspection under my unwavering stare, and this time, I found no flaws.

      We started the lesson on the etymology of Philosophy and the differences between a knowledgeable person and a wise man. That was the most interesting part of that lesson. If I am to condense that portion, I realized that what separates a wise man from a knowledgeable person is the former’s ability to use his gained knowledge to do the right things and put his skills in good use. I couldn’t help but think of a certain author from AFF when our professor said that. I will not disclose her name, (in this case her username) but I do hope that if you’re reading this, you would know it’s you, Ms. Wisdom.

      By the end of today’s meeting I was able to discover the real challenge of Philosophy – of life, it is to gain knowledge and put it in good use. It struck me most when I badly needed it, and what raised my interest more was the fact that I never realized this need until it was subtly implied today.

And with that, I thank Prof.

God Bless everyone,

Achailee -- owlie.