vincentlazatin

[vincentlazatin]

My Unwritten Letter

Dear 5th Grade Vincent

    I am You, about 7 into the future and about to graduate in Highschool. I hope you’re doing fine with the situation you are in. This might be my last letter to you since my current situations has changed so much I can’t stick with the past anymore for it’ll only cause me suffering and regrets that I can’t carry along with my current burdens in school and outside school. But I’ve sent this letter to let you know something that I’ve just came to realized and want to share to you.

    As of your situation, you’re in Holy Family Academy and your class is in SB 501. You were looking for a good friend after your friend Genesis finished 4th Grade with you and changed school. Then you found Paolo, Clyde, and Roland and started hanging out with them and did some young boy at school innocent type fun. And started teasing one girl in class named Isabella and it would go on until you with your friends got called in the office to apologize to her. From there, you started handing out with Isabella and doing things behind your other friends just to see if Isabella is doing after the incident. As of the time that you’re reading this, you should be back at home after school. Just being carefree and not doing your assignments and just playing games. But I specifically mentioned that moment that you and I, your future you, both experienced because I really commend you for helping her out by just being a friend. I’ve learn right now that you don’t need many friends to enjoy life but look for good friends that don’t harm others in any form. It’s about the quality of friends, not quantity.

    And remember that time back when someone kept berating you on how bad you played volleyball and simply can’t forgive him? And probably had an actual intention to kill back then? Well I’m sorry to break it up to you Grade 5 me but eventually you’ll forgive him. Even though you’ll develop a bad picture about him, you’ll eventually forgive him. And I do hope that while young, please forgive him. Never did what I did of keeping the grudge in your heart as if it happened yesterday. Learn to forgive and life will be smoother. I promise you Grade 5 Vincent that we eventually change and will forget the bad past and move on. From there, you’ll learn one of the means to be happy and thankful.

    This moments I’ve mention because this is what your future self still remember fondly and believes that this moments changed you. Can’t wait for you to experience Grade 6 where you almost didn’t graduate due to requirements. And in Grade 7 where Highschool shock starts and you establishing who you really are. But I won’t spoil the rest because in highschool, that’s where the fun begins. And I’ll give you a hint, you’ll eventually fall in love even though you’ll deny it. Remember, it’ll be tougher ahead but stay calm, happy, and ready for what’s ahead. Again, this will be my last letter to you Grade 5 Vincent for the Grade 12 Vincent is about to submit this paper so early that your future you might get a high score. Thank you and good bye. Sincerely

Grade 12 Vincent

[vincentlazatin]

A Brittle Online/Blended Road of Education

Online/Blended Education is still a fragile system till now. Ever since the Pandemic hit the Philippines, our way of life, unexpectedly, has changed drastically. And so, with our lives at risk and the intension to live life the best we can, we were forced to adapt with the situation as quick yet effective as possible. From the Government and DepEd’s great minds, they came up with Online Classes as a way for them to continue schooling. But from I’ve seen, the Online/Blended Education is a fragile system given the circumstance of the capability and capacity to provide reliable internet, continuous electricity, production of materials, the student’s access to materials, which affected the population of enrollees from then to now. And so, I’ll take this opportunity to describe this topic from my point of view on why the current system is fragile.

    I’m currently using the Online Classes as a medium for education and it works finely for me. The situation that I’m in is like when you’re in that one city with convenient stores each corner, that’s how I view it. Because the fact that there are convenient stores, means that I have very easy access to products or services that allow me to continue my online learning. But for some people these things are like coconuts on the tree that are hard to reach and for some it’s like just staring at the stars and wishing for a shooting star to pass. The idea here is that for some, or many, these services such as internet, electricity, TV/Radio signal stations, or a printer is hard to get by and that’s because there are people spread out in the Philippine Islands and they are not close to any cities or town that could provide such services to support either online learning, TV/Radio learning, or the use of printed Modules.

    So, given the narrative of a convenient store by the corner, these convenient stores are mostly by a big, wide road or a busy one. It’s those situations that you’re just walking around your block and just passed by 5 convenient stores. Convenient stores are easy to reach, and just like in my online learning, I have good and easy access to educational materials that I’d need for online learning. But let’s be real here, not everywhere is like a busy city with many convenient stores by the corner, and not everyone is as fortunate as some as to have easy access to learning materials. In online learning, you’d need a device, such as a phone, tablet, laptop, or a pc to access different applications that can run and support your online learning, in TV/Radio learning you’ll need either a Television or a Radio to watch or listen to educational programs. Or if electronic devices are not available to you, just grab yourself a printed Module and learn from there. Point is, not everyone has easy access to electronic devices and even the logistics of Printed Module is already a pain to the students since some are traveling from the mountains.

    From the first two paragraphs you’d noticed that both mentions somethings along the idea of easy access and that’s pretty much the very challenge of today’s learning system. Which brings me to the idea that thanks to other’s limited access to services that can provide proper internet, reliable electricity and TV/Radio signal and electronic devices or just procuring the materials needed to produce the Printed Modules and to send them out to students. The overall performance of the current learning system is not as wide for everyone to accommodate which could have related to the sudden drop of enrollees for school year 2020-2021. We are talking about thousands and thousands of young people to the millions, who could have continued their academics and finish their studies.  Just to be clear I’m not saying that the current learning system is bad, I’m just saying that the current learning systems we have is still fragile with many given circumstances from one to another. The best that we can do is just act upon it and do our best to improve the possible access to more students.

    In conclusion, Online/Blended Education is like an that one convenient store in your block that has what you need to live your day as regular as it can be but tends to be sometimes out of your favorite snack. Without the proper services to provide the necessary utilities, learning can not take place and without the devices or printed modules needed for learning, again, cannot take place. It is a problem of availability and access which contributed to the drop of enrollees, which can then give the idea that the current learning system is demanding and will not function without a single part of the system. And we shall do our best to improve the current system until the old traditional learning system is back and we get our daily allowance from our parents to buy stuff from your nearest convenient store.

[vincentlazatin]

A whisker of certainty

     Being an person with an strong interest in anime, I recently started watching few anime movies whenever I have the time. The most recent one I watched is A whisker Away or Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu in Japanese. For an 1 hour and 44 minute fantasy adventure animated movie, with good visuals and a easy plot to follow. But I’m not here to critique the movie, but instead I’ll be just sharing my experience while I was watching the movie along with my friends.

     I always imagined that when I watched the movie, it will just give me the same vibes as watching Your Name, Weathering with You, or Hello World. Wherein the main character, Sasaki Miyo, in the movie has feelings for another character, Hinode Kento, and some problem presents itself to challenge the characters feelings and thoughts about everything and with some good plot armor they were able to overcome the problem and end up in a strong relationship which gives us an happy ending. And it did give me that vibe. But that vibe is not the same vibe compared when I watched the mentioned films. I can’t easily point the reason why the movie hits me more like is it because I may not have an similar culture, or similar lifestyle, or the fact that the main character has intimate feelings for another.

     My critical and realistic side of me thinks that Miyo could have handled the situation better and not go through the extra steps and not jeopardize her life but my understanding and forgiving side tells me that the events in the story has presented itself an life lesson that we should appreciate the little things in life and you are never alone that there will be at least one person in the world that will be there to personally help you, and those really resonated with me. For so long, I lived my life drifting aimlessly with the times and people around me, never though of having friends, and never asking for help due to my lack of trust and faith for a helping hand, never knowing I’m already at the lowest point of my life thinking that I just want to end things. But till the end of the movie have I realized that I’m already up from the low point and still going up thanks to the people i never thought I’ll be ever friends with.

     At the end of the movie, the lessons started to appear in my head. And never knowing I started to tear up and everyone asked if I’m ok. From there i have never imagined a day would come where someone will ask me if I’m ok after watching a movie. In that moment of tears and self blame came an feeling of freedom and weightless mind. And to make things worse, it’s was me, my friends, and a couple of scouts from our troop who watched the movie and they saw me cry for the first time. And I was asked how was the movie, and to my response, told them what I said here about the little things in life and there’s at least one person who’ll be with you. Coming from one of their instructor, I don’t know how I’d feel if I see my instructor cried from an movie.

     At the end of it all, it was an pretty good movie that started me to reflect on my life experience and how can I improve my current situation. And also started to question myself why does my other side have to be this hard and critical towards my other self. Either way, this experience is something that’ll be hard to forget  for some time to come. And so always remember that appreciate and enjoy the little things in life and you’re never alone despite yourself saying that you are.