From My Perspective

hi! i am cami and this is my story.

5.00 am

*one missed call ringtone set as alarm tone* boohoo. too early and i already had to wake up. how unfair could life be? moving my muscles proved to be the hardest thing to do on earth at that moment.  it required too much will power just so i could move into a sitting position.  how much more to stand up? gee. 

5.31 am

boohoo once again.  i never thought there would be somebody using the shower room at this time on a weekend.  i thought half of the residents of the apartment go home by friday night and the rest never wake up till 12.00 pm.  boy, how wrong i was. 

6.00 am

*moved like an epileptic* grr.  i was chilling.  cold days weren’t yet over. one of the reasons why i hate taking baths during first months of the year. [mind, i hate it but i still do it. twice per day.]

6.33 am

i was all set and ready to leave the house and head to my fave net cafe to finish the ppt for the report later when my lovable dorm mate, stephanie, suddenly jerked awake murmuring sorry to me through half sleep-half awake sense and giving me toodles, the laptop.  she was supposed to lend me the laptop last night but unfortunately, she was already asleep when i reached home so there was no toodles for me to use. [another of too many reasons why i have a very, very strong desire of purchasing a laptop.  sadly, it'll remain a desire no matter how strong.  i have to wait till next semester before i can buy myself one from my own money.]

8.59 am

the class was on nine am yet you could still count all the people with fingers in one hand.  was this a normal event for saturday morning classes? forgive me for my ignorance. my forever tardiness on PR classes was the reason. i was going to report after a minute.  where were the audience?

9.05 am

hey, i remembered something.  the saturday before this was the midterm for both saturday classes, statistics and PR.  were they going to hand the results this day? *chill ran down my spine*

9.31 am

[sorry. i am a selective amnesiac.  i can't remember what transpired from this moment till 10.28 am.  but i can recall some bits and pieces of from my memory.  for example, i do know that i was in front of the class during this time and i was looking at my PR professor, jabal.  and i do remember that i was talking about crisis communication and people were laughing at some points in time. besides that, i remember nada.]

10.28 am

one report down.  one major task of the day down.  one major task for PR class down.  and i was bloody grateful.   i just had to hear of the last reporter’s report and more lectures from jabs then get the result of PR quiz. then half the day would be gone.  

10.31 am

jabs said we could have ten minutes break after the CRS report so we could look at the histograms of the Orcom Statistics midterm exam result recently posted by the stat instructor.    tension was high from this moment on.

10.53 am

start of the ten minutes break.  everybody rushed outside to DAC bulletin board to take a peep of the boxplot and histogram of our grades.  the over-all average of grades was pretty low. there were four or five people who got 20++ percent.  many fell under 30++  to 50++ percent. the mode of the graph was in 70++ percent which was good but not enough.  the minimum grade was 20++ while the maximum grade was only 84. our class comparably got higher mean grade than the morning stat class.  expectedly, the tension the class was feeling was replaced by sullen mood.  in retrospect, i think i was the only one who had the gall to say i am one of those few people who got grades of 80++. [well, i believed i did well. and besides, that time i had the same smug feeling that i did good as when i took upcat. ]  half of the class was claiming they were the one who got the 20++ [only one from our class got a 20++. the other two or three were from the other class.] it was as if it was a prestigious title to hold.

11.53 am

the PR class was finally over.  time to face the Statistic monster and the nightmare test result.  out in the hallway were batchmates from first class. nobody was in ok mood.  everybody had something written on their forehead saying that things weren’t in great condition, esp the stat test result.  not even Yela, the batch’s math genius, who apparently only got 77.  it was one of the most unfavorable saturdays our batch ever had.

1.00 pm

boohoo.  the class was agitated.  there  would be individual work about a topic that the class had never discussed before.  and javelosa, the Statistics instructor, was not yet in the room.

1.29 pm

javelosa entered the dungeon aka classroom. the tension impossibly possibly went a notch higher.

1. 40 pm

the class was asked to do the task.  we had to identify the hypotheses of three problems written on board.  formulating the hypotheses in inferential stat and doing its representations was not yet discussed in class ever.  fortunately, drew, cams and i were able to scrape it.  and i think everybody else did, too, though with varying degrees of confidence of scraping right answers. 

2.25 pm

student’s t-test for two independent variable discussion followed.  it was quite easy.  i was asked to do the hardest part of one sample problem for the board work.  by this time, the class was lulled into a false sense of comfort.  it was as if everybody had forgotten about the looming test result nightmare.  i was pretty talkative and giggly by this time. it made me think if javs was already pissed off by my nostop voice carrying over complaints and bouts of insanity to drew who was seating beside me in the front row. well, if he had it wasn’t obvious.

3.30 pm

as i was the one seating in front and as javs was pretty used into approaching me for various reasons eg. borrowing pens, readings, asking questions, etc. , he approached me again to ask for time.  i said two-thirty and he asked me back if we already want to dismiss the class.  in other words, end of class discussion and time for the exam results.  boo, boy.  i never had seen the whole class stiffened before as they had stiffened that time.  the tension went back.  only this time it was a deca more higher.  drew was voicing his nervousness by my side and clutching my arms with his damp, cold ones.  he was telling me that he would watch naruto if he failed the test. i answered, “go ahead.” no assuring words whatsoever.  i swear there was no other subject that made Orcom people react this way as orcom stat had. not even on Orcom 109.2 classes of villar.  not even in orcom 142 of barry.  it was exclusive for orcom 155. 

3.34 pm

javelosa pulled out a bunch of bluebooks from inside his bag. everybody groaned.  he started calling names, bocar as the first one.  everybody was asking if it was arranged in any certain order. was arra the highest? but after some seconds of looking at her face, we got the answer. no. drew got his first before i or camile did. he said he would definitely watch naruto. i answered, “go ahead.”

3.38 pm

“revilla”, called javelosa when  it was my turn to be shocked.  i looked at the bottom of the page.  i wasn’t shocked; i was heartbroken.  it said 76 %.  i wasn’t the highest.  not even a grade of 80 even withou the ++.  but anyhow, other people got grades way lower than mine so i kept a poker face as i approached my seat.  drew was looking at me and was trying to read my face and i thought it was a good decision i adapted poker face.  as i reached my seat i stared blankly in front of me. i didn’t even looked at the inside of the bluebook.  i knew what i did wrong.  i had known since the moment i passed the bluebook to javelosa after i finished answering the exam paper. i didn’t criticize the graphs as indicated in the questionnaire.  i interpreted it.  it cost me 12 points.  it was the most painful kind of mistake because i know i would have gotten it right if only i read and understood the instructions properly.  i knew the right answers, i just didn’t knew it was what i was supposed to give.

3.43 pm

drew was saying something beside me.  i didn’t understand whta he was saying but it made me look at my bluebook again.  there at the upper left corner was a not so red mark saying “new score: … 84.88%”.  BOY! did i get it right? did i get the highest score? yipeee! but no.  i wasn’t yet sure. more poker face.

3.45 pm

jimi was asking if i was the highest.  i was tempted to say yes.  but i thought the better of it, i said no with a [hardly] suppressed smile.  i was glad they believed me.  anyway, i wasn’t popular as ms. math myself. i faced drew once again after talking with jimi.  he showed me his paper; he asked for my grade.  i was actually thinking of not showing it to them but it might appear more smug than just revealing the score so in the end i just showed the bluebook to him and camile. by the time we started minding what’s happening around us again, we heard people were already asking javelosa what was the highest score.  javelosa said 84.88%. confirmed! my insides were doing the chacha while people were trying to know who got the highest grade. they were actually threatening to get the highest grader’s life.   javelosa said he had already forgotten but drew faced pam and answered it was i.  bang! i slapped drew’s arms, sent signals for him to shut up. he did.  at my back, people continued threatening my life.

4.01 pm

i headed to DAC with javelosa because i was trying to get more points corrected, not only for myself but for drew and others as well. 

the day was disastrous in over-all rate.  but i was just glad that i got the high grade. smug that i may seem to you, i am sorry.   i am just too glad of finally having something that boosts my esteem once again.  it has been a long time since i last felt comfortable with math and it feels really good to be in good terms with it once again.