Here's my work area in the Communications Department of the Ateneo de Manila University where I am in my first semester of teaching. I am teaching an elective course on Introduction to Journalism where I have Comm majors and Interdisciplinary Studies students. Right now I have 22 students (they only allowed 20 slots for the class originally) and quite honestly, I'm just happy doing it whether I have five or ten students. Sometime last year, I asked Sev Sarmenta, the Dean of the College if I could teach and nothing materialized out of that. This year, about two weeks before the start of the semester, he told me there was a vacancy and it was mine if I wanted it. Now what kind of fool am I to refuse that? I've not done a syllabus in ages (since my Tulong Dunong days in high school) and I was really elated when Sev liked it and made minor changes in what I did. His advice was most helpful in getting me ready for my first day.
In the last several years, I done several seminars not just in Ateneo but in UST, San Beda College, Immaculate Concepcion Academy, and the Mindanao State University! There were also a memorable seminar with my alma mater the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and most recently, the In the Huddle Sportswriting Congress. But those are one-off talks. This one is different and honestly, it added some fire to my daily grind.
Journalism is all about life and that's what the course will be all about. I hope to really make it a memorable class for my students and although I said that I'm only doing this for this semester, who knows where I will go with this?
The picture above is my workstation while the one below is my pigeonhole outside the department. I'm kind of disappointed that there won't be classes this coming Tuesday although I'm sure that students everywhere are kind of happy that there aren't (I would if I were a student, right?). So on to the next!
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