I got in

Do you guys remember me applying for grad school a few weeks ago?

I had assumed that I didn't get in, since it had been a month and I still hadn't heard back from them. I was already making plans for the summer, a nice little vacation with the money I won't be spending for tuition.

Then I got a message in my inbox last weekend:

We are very pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as a student under the Master of Technology Management (MTM) program of the University of the Philippines – Diliman Technology Management Center (UPTMC).

But then my happiness was short-lived when I read on:

To prepare for your coursework, you are required to attend a series of Preparatory Courses/Workshops on General Management, Marketing, Production and Operations Management, Accounting, and Effective Communications, which will be held on May 7, 14, 21, 27 & 28 and June 4 & 11, 2006. Each workshop session is scheduled from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., and will be held at the TMC in UP Diliman. Registration and payment of fee (P6,000.00) for the five (5) workshops should be done from May 2 to 5, at the TMC Graduate Program Office.

There goes my summer. Not only will I be in school every weekend, but between tuition (for the workshop and next semester) and for all the other stuff going on, I won't have any money anymore.

On the other hand, I'm legitimately psyched to go back to school, so much so that the courses listed above look alluring.


Last night, I was thinking about how I really, really want to do well in school this time. See, the thing that I probably most appreciate about going to Pisay for high school is that it made it okay for me to be, well, regular, or to think of myself as "regular". I mean, whenever I felt too golden about myself back in high school, there usually was a Physics exam or a Bio assignment that handed my ass back to me. And while I realized that I couldn't be the smartest or the best, I also realized that I didn't have to, and that I could live with myself knowing so.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I would guess that this would be true as well for a lot of my friends, to a certain extent. There is this unfortunate side effect seeing how some (most?) of us haven't fulfilled our full potential, but then again, a lot of us have done well, and are (for the most part) not unhappy.

It's just that since I entered high school, I have felt neither the desire nor the need to prove to anyone, least of all myself, that I'm smart or I'm good. Until now. I guess I figured it's time to stop getting my rocks off over an exam I took over twelve years ago.


This is turning out to be quite a year for me. Several weeks ago I was given a little promotion here at work, and later this summer I'll be moving out to live on my own (which makes me more broke). Now I'll be going back to school.

If everything goes according to plan, I'll be 27 (turning 28) by the time I finish grad school. Tapos nito mag-aasawa na ako.

- posted by jaemark @ 5/03/2006 12:55:00 AM