Monday, June 18, 2007

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

I was excited to start the new semester right. I even bought a new notebook and signpen for the first time in a very long time. I can't begin to imagine how I survived last sem without pen and paper. I always borrow from my classmates. My usual line is "Ay, nahulog yung ballpen ko. Pahiram naman o." (I dropped my pen on the way here. Can I borrow yours?). My classmates have so gotten used to my spiel that there cam a time when they offer pen and paper to me even without me asking for it. Darn. I should be ashamed of myself!

Plan 214 is Planning Techniques, and my teacher is Ma'am Chaves. A good friend of mine in college recommended that I take her class and so I did. I thought it was going to be more of a theoretical and research-oriented class, that we would be writing papers, etc. That's just my kind of thing. But I found out it's quantitative and just like Plan 299 (Research Methods in Planning). Worse, Ma'am Chaves is a Statistics graduate so we would be crunching numbers and have formulas for dessert. Eek! I am SO bad in math. It doesn't help that I learned absolutely NOTHING in Plan 299. I have no choice but to go over regression analysis and test of hypothesis and other scary math stuff.

It was nice to see familiar faces inside the room. Three of my former classmates in Plan 201 (take one, 2nd sem AY 2005-2006 under Ma'am Jimenez) are my classmates in Plan 214. They actually recognized me and asked why I suddenly dropped off the face of the planet. I felt a pang of regret. If only I studied like I should, then we will still be "blockmates". They told me they have been classmates ever since, they're always groupmates, and I can see that indeed they share a common bond. They will be able to finish their Diploma this sem, and I would have joined them if only I was a better student.

Oh, should have. Would have. Could have. I had a different set of priorities back then. I can't say that I entirely regret my choices, but if I could do it over again, I would have not given up SURP. Thinking about it now, my reason was SO lame and it doesn't make sense at all. I didn't use my head. I used my heart. To have the gift of foresight.. Well, I can't do anything about it now. There's no use crying over spilled milk. I should learn from my mistakes and do my best not to commit the same mistakes again. I can't change yesterday, but I have the power to change tomorrow.

One should NEVER EVER base his/ her decisions on someone else. Your choices should not depend on anybody else but you. People come, and people go. In the end, the only person you're accountable to is yourself. The only person you can really ever have is yourself.

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