Sunday, July 08, 2007

Well........

We have been super busy with school lately. 6 days a week, 10:30AM-5:30 pm.... Sundays are little breaks that we stop and catch our breath.

I was cajoled into becoming the College of Nursing's 3rd year Representative, to help my friend Ray run as Governor. After a bunch of weird red tape, we had to water down our party and since he was only eligible for vice-gov, we took on an indy running gov for our top spot. With very little time to campaign properly, we were generally defeated in the top two spots, Ray could not overcome the sweeping popularity of his competition, a guy who's father is a popular professor at the school and clinical head who spoke up during the campaigning debate, much to our dismay. As well, he was allowed to run with "larger than allowed" campaign posters. In spite of all if this, my man lost by only 13 votes, and the clincher votes were the 4th year votes that we had nearly no contact with. Most of the 4th year students are out of the college 75% of the time and just voted on name recognition, or a candidates' openly "gay-ness", yes, there was a "Gay party" that took a large percent of the vote. Their platform? They want to have a "Gay "Miss Nursing Pageant". I am friendly with everyone at the school, gay and otherwise. I generally think that running on being "gay" is simply not valid, but my views on homosexuality are probably more "refined" than the average conservatively raised yet newly expressive Filipino student. I just don't see them as different in terms of ability or accomplishment, whereas they are something of a force in todays Filipino culture because of their "newness" and popularity in mass media, etc. If I were gay, I would hate to run as a "Gay guy". That doesn't seem to be enough to formulate ideas or programs or communicate effectively between the administration and student population. As predicted by many, I swept the 3rd year rep position, and will now have something of an "opposition" role, keeping checks and balances between Super popular kids of teachers / openly gay candidates and every other student in the school who just wants to graduate from college and get their degree in nursing. I get to complain on behalf of my classmates, write nasty letters and make recommendations. In short, heaven. Philippine politics is amazingly more confusing than American politics..

Anyways, Ill try to get things done as I have done in the Foreign Student President position that is coming up. We had a nice presentation from the guidance office for the foreigners followed by a "quick meeting" that quickly turned ugly as my VP from last year degraded all of the hard work we all accomplished to further his own hopeful presidential aspirations. He was met by a lot of opposition and though I really admire his enthusiasm as always, his ideas seem too far reaching for an organization in its infancy. We have accomplished a lot of good, and I was upset to lose momentum, arguing about a discontented 5%. In the end, our team triumphed and we are set to promote interesting programs and tap into the underutilized 95% of our school facilities. Cultural exhibits, fun fairs, English and Tagalog lessons, peer/academic counseling.. that's what we started, and that's what we are going to build upon. I really look forward to working with our new adviser from the Office of Student Affairs. He is a really nice guy, quick thinking and can solve problems and create programs for us.

School work has been kinda weird. The pace is slow, but awkward. We are having our preliminary exams next week, I have about 1001 things to get done before I can crack a book open, and I guess I'll get to that.

3 comments:

Jesse and Yavon said...

Sounds like you have your hands full. Good luck with all your duties. Sounds like Gay is the new in thing. My gay friends would love to know that..lolol I will inform them at the party we are having in a couple of weekends. Have fun!

Jesse and Yavon said...

Gay is the new straight man. Get with it..

Joaquin said...

I really didn't mean to besmirch gay people. I hope it didn't come across that way. I just think that if you are gay or straight, either distinction does not say anything about your qualifications.