Jandrea...so far

Performance artist near the  Sacre Couer Basilica in Paris  For my SJC Classmates... Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die" It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality. As far as I'm concerned, the work of art that constantly reminds me of my mortality is the face and body I see in the full-length mirror daily. When I peer into my likeness, there is no doubt that I'm inching my way slowly into mortality. But there was a better way of convincing me that this was true. Since the last few weeks after my birthday in September,  I have been busy with my annual physical examination. The results have been trickling in, one by one, and my feelings  remind me of my Little Girl Self anxiously waiting to open my  gifts on Christmas eve.  When I did get to read all of th

Tree in the Academic Oval For the last 17 years, I've been having a affair... with teaching... at UP. Being a teacher at UP has always made me feel like I'm in a forbidden romance. Many days, I  feel giddy just being here but for an equal amount of days, I feel unworthy to be part of such an illustrious institution.  As an undergraduate student,  I was in awe of my professors. There they were, up in the star-decked sky and I could only marvel at their brilliance from my place among the riffraff of the academic world. Although I grew up helping my teacher mother with her preparations for class,  entering the academe was never part of my plan on how to conquer the world. I admit, once in a while, I did imagine myself in front of the classroom but never actually believed I could do it in real life. It was like having a secret crush on that gentle-looking hunk in the library but knowing it would remain just that because he was someone else's boyfriend. And even if he we