Cruz-Busto: Student life

IT HAS been 12 years since I last considered myself a full time and regular student. Oh yes, I have had short courses like the French language course that I used to take five months ago but it was just a three-hour class done once a week. The schedule was very easy and manageable.

For almost a month now (thank goodness, time flies so fast), I have been a student attending whole day classes and doing school work which I know will soon pile up. But becoming a student again today is much different when I was one several years ago.

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Like Greg Heffley of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, going back to school gives me a lot of jitters. For one, I am the second most senior in the class. It was such a relief for me to find out there was one more senior than me. At least, the expectation as to how I would fare would not be that intense. People think that being the senior translates to being the class' topnotcher, definitely not, and I have several valid reasons for that (not necessarily excuses).

For someone who is married and with a seven year old son, priorities are not going to be focused on the class or course alone. For me, I have a child, husband, household, and work to attend to. In fact, two households at that as we had just completed moving our stuff to our new place but has not completely done with that though.

I would have wanted to adopt the "bahala na si Batman" attitude for the course because I do not want to pressure myself much. I said to myself that I wanted to pass the course doing what was needed and necessary—submit school works on time, participate in all school activities, never be absent and always be on time. I thought with that nothing could go wrong. As long as I was not at the bottom end of the class standing, I was fine with that. Anyway, I have not been that grade conscious nor was I passive when I was a student way back then.

Being a mother alone is a huge responsibility, becoming a student is another. Good thing I have two other classmates who are mothers themselves and who like me, juggle their time as such, too. One is a single parent with two kids and another is an all around mother who has a five year old daughter and whose househelp just left. Her husband has daily flights, too. It is a relief for her though that her brother can substitute for her once in a while.

While I was not the most senior or ranking in the class, I was however voted as the class’ President. I know a lot of responsibility goes with it. Just when I thought I could relax, I was wrong. I had to act like a big sister and mature individual because my classmates tend to come to me for representation in terms of academic and non-academic concerns.

In fact, when we have assignments, I feel like I am doing a handful because some of my classmates would also ask for my assistance to go over their work. And I cannot refuse because I know they also need encouragement and prodding to be able to accomplish their assignments.

Although our course (which runs for 16 weeks) does not have Mathematics (my waterloo back in college), it involves a lot of running, running and running. It is as if I have Math in its physical sense. I am no Thunderbolt when it comes to running but I know as the class' leader, I cannot bog down, it is just so embarrassing for my classmates. That is another disadvantage of being elected class President, one has to be a role model to them.

For someone who is a few years nearing 40 years old, I would have thought that I am way past that stage. Oh yes I know I should be fit as I am still part of the service. But we seldom do runs in five kilometer stretches unless one is part of a flight or battalion run. It is like I am having Mathematics again, this time however it's not mental exercise but physical. For the course, we will be doing several five kilometer runs, pushups and sit-ups.

In the mean time though, I make light of our course by telling my classmates that time flies so fast and soon, we will all be done with class and we will have time to relax again.